"There is something I'd like to say today to the big-city columnists who will be covering Dwight Howard once his trade request is executed and he gets his wish to play in a major media market.

He is not "stupid."

He is not an "idiot."

He is not a "chump."

And he is certainly not a "loser."

Those are just some of the caustic, biting words used to describe Howard in a column earlier this week by the Chicago Tribune's resident rabble-rouser Steve Rosenbloom. It seems Rosenbloom had venom and vitriol pouring from his laptop because Howard has had the gall to leave the Chicago Bulls off of his preferred destination list.

"I have an issue with Dwight Howard," Rosenbloom railed. "He sounds like an idiot. He sounds like a loser. … That's the Howard we're seeing now. The idiot Howard. … If Howard doesn't want to come to Chicago, do you really want him? Do you want someone that stupid?"

Welcome to the big city, Dwight.

Is this what you really want?

It will be fascinating to see how the ultrasensitive Howard handles the intense media scrutiny he will get in places where the tabloids, the TMZs and the goon columnists take a machete to his every fault, foible and failing. Howard is a guy who actually thinks the Orlando Sentinel is tough on him when mostly all we columnists do is write about how great he is, how much we will miss him and how devastating it will be for the team and the town once his trade request is actually executed.

Oh, sure, every once in a while we'll write something really scathing like, "Gee, it sure would be nice if Dwight were a better free-throw shooter." But, for the most part, the Orlando media have been more than fair to the city's only sports superstar. His privacy has not been invaded. His personal life has not been delved into. His ex-girlfriends have not been tracked down by reporters looking for any smudge of dirt, any provocative text message or any compromising photograph they can splash across the back page of the tabloids."