Dwight Howard, Lance Stephenson Have Fight, Spill into Stands

Two names at the forefront of the NBA ten years ago are now trying to extend their basketball careers in a slightly different format. But for former Los Angeles Lakers veterans Dwight Howard and Lance Stephenson, they are finding the physicality and intensity of their new sport difficult to deal with.

Howard and Stephenson are both signed to the BIG3, the leading American professional 3×3 basketball league, which has throughout its short history been replete with former NBA players. Names such as Jonathon Simmons, Montrezl Harrell, Jason Richardson, Amir Johnson, Glen Rice Jr, Greg Monroe and Paul Millsap, to name just a few, are among the notable NBA alumni currently signed in the competition, which has become a haven for those whose NBA careers have just ended due to its rate of pay and effective marketing.

All that talent makes for a competitive environment. And that competitive spirit can boil over. In an altercation that took place in the opening game of the BIG3’s 2025 season, Howard and Stephenson got into it, tangling up in a scuffle that eventually spilled into the front row of the crowd.

BIG3’s Lenient Stance On Taunting

Annoyed by unrelenting taunts from Stephenson’s team-mate, former Miami Heat forward Michael Beasley, a frustrated Howard started verbally sparring with Stephenson, himself never one to back down. The pair shoved each other and locked arms, eventually falling into the first row of the arena’s seating before finally being separated by team-mates – including Beasley, the event’s primary antagonist.

Taunting is prohibited in the sanitized product that is the NBA, but the BIG3 takes a more laissez-faire approach. Beasley – a noted one-on-one expert throughout his basketball career who will happily let everyone know about it – was flexing something fierce after each made basket, in an overt display of braggadocio that fueled the fire that would eventually be taken out on someone else. Stephenson, a fellow chirper, was also going at Howard, who eventually retaliated with the first shove.

This policy of accepting taunting is not for everyone, and was decried in the aftermath by 13-year NBA veteran, Keyon Dooling. In an appearance on the All The Smoke podcast with fellow NBA veteran Matt Barnes, Dooling called the policy “disrespectful”, and a hindrance to the league’s reputation.

“I think what’s happened too with the BIG3 is that they’ve implemented this troll part of basketball that has kind of come along the way, and it’s borderline disrespectful with the antics and things like that”, said Dooling. “At the end of the day, I don’t like those particular antics.”

“I like competitiveness, I like toughness and all that. But the dancing, the grabbing, doing too much, pointing, touching – I don’t really like that.”

Neither, it seems, did Howard.

No Suspensions Handed Down

Surprisingly, both players would avoid punishment.

Howard – who only joined the BIG3 in April – was playing his first game for his new team, the LA Riot. Until as recently as 2023, he had still been playing his 5×5 career out in Taiwan, while Beasley had been in China’s CBA League in the 2022-23 season and was also making his 3×3 debut.

That relative experience – for two men of a combined 75 years of age – was seemingly enough grounds for the BIG3 to justify not suspending either player.

When viewed through the lens of the NBA product – where players can be suspended for just leaving the bench, however passively, and no matter how big of a game they miss as a result – the decision to let the two go unpunished seems incongruous. The BIG3, though, has a clear marketing strategy. They want the big names, they want them going at it, and they want the intensity. A few spilled plates of potato chips are a price they are willing to pay for those optics. Time will tell if this a wise path to walk down.

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Dwight Howard, Lance Stephenson Have Fight, Spill into Stands

BIG3’s Lenient Stance On Taunting

No Suspensions Handed Down

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