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Precise Moment Kobe Bryant Knew Dwight Howard Would Fail

Precise Moment Kobe Bryant Knew Dwight Howard Would Fail

The Los Angeles Lakers added Dwight Howard in 2013 with hopes of building a new dynasty around Kobe Bryant.

It didn’t quite work out as planned.

That Lakers group never made it past the first round, and neither Bryant nor Howard ever truly returned to the level of play they exhibited prior.

Howard would come back a decade later to claim a championship with the Lakers, but the stain of that initial failure followed him around for the entirety of his career.

During a recent interview with ESPN, Jalen Rose went into great detail about the precise moment Bryant knew his relationship with Howard was doomed.

As it turns out – it was in the very beginning.

“I was standing right next to him at his camp when he first talked to Dwight Howard,” Rose said.

“And I’mma say this now because they made amends. I’ve never said this before. When he got on the phone with Dwight Howard, because I know what that conversation was. I was right there and Dwight was excited; he was asking him about L.A. He was asking him about how he was going to help him, make him better; he asked him off the court, he asked about everything.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what Bryant was looking for.

“After he asked all of those questions, you know what Kobe said? I’mma show you mofo how to get championships,” Rose continued. “What do you think about that? He got off the phone with Dwight Howard and said, ‘his head ain’t in the right place. This ain’t gonna work.’ And, it didn’t work.”

Bryant was and continues to be one of the most fascinating players in NBA history. His knowledge of the game was unmatched, which is why both him describing the hardest guy to guard in the NBA and his incredible quote on missing shots continues to live on in infamy.

It’s also why people feel so strongly about preserving Bryant’s memory, as evidenced by the reaction of a group of Lakers fans to a man publicly disrespecting the legend in the city of LA.

Bryant always saw the basketball world for what it was, and his commentary on Howard is just further evidence of that.

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Carlos Garcia

A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.

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