Kobe Bryant Knew the Los Angeles Lakers’ Dwight Howard Experiment Was Headed Toward Disaster After a Single Phone Call
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Following back-to-back second-round exits, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers wanted to make a splash. Perhaps, they even needed to make a splash. With an aging Bryant still playing at a high level, the Lakers wondered what it would take to win their star his sixth championship. The answer was none other than Dwight Howard, the transcendent center of the Orlando Magic.
Howard’s arrival in LA made the Purple and Gold instant contenders. However, Kobe was skeptical of D12 even before the two All-Stars stepped on the floor together.
The Los Angeles Lakers envisioned Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard winning a championship together
In the summer of 2012, LA was two years removed from winning back-to-back titles. Worse yet, it had just watched the Miami Heat trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh win their first of two championships.
As you can expect, the mission to form a superteam of its own was on. And acquiring Howard was the way to make it happen.
At the time, Howard was a 26-year-old with six consecutive All-Star appearances. He was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year winner with an offensive arsenal capable of carrying a team, as he did in 2009 when his Magic lost in five games to Kobe’s Lakers. And best of all, he was demanding a trade out of Orlando.
After months of speculation and years of wishing, the Lakers secured the game’s best center. LA acquired Howard in a four-team deal involving the Philadelphia 76ers and Denver Nuggets. The most significant player the Purple and Gold lost was Andrew Bynum, who missed the entire 2012-13 season with the Sixers and played just 26 more games for the rest of his career.
Howard joined Bryant and Steve Nash, who signed with the Lakers a month earlier, to form a trio ready to win a title … or so we thought.
Kobe knew Howard wasn’t cut out for LA after a brief phone call
Heading into his 17th season, the 34-year-old Bryant was running out of time to secure at least one more championship. The Lakers tried to pair him with Chris Paul in 2011, but the deal was famously vetoed by commissioner David Stern. But Kobe now had two perennial All-Stars in Howard and Nash, who —along with Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace — could help him return to the mountain top.
But it wasn’t long before Kobe realized Howard wasn’t going to be the teammate to get him there.
Former NBA veteran and current ESPN personality Jalen Rose recently appeared on an episode of All the Smoke to discuss all things basketball. During the interview, Rose shared a story about a time he and Bryant were hanging out after the trade went down. Kobe received a call from Howard, his new teammate.
“So Kob’ take the call. I’m sitting there, and I might’ve heard some of the conversation. And I might’ve heard Dwight asking him about LA, some of the off-the-court things. Kobe got off the phone and said, ‘This s*** ain’t gon’ work.’ That’s exactly what he said. And this is before he even laced up with him one time. He said, ‘His head ain’t right. MoFo, I’m here to help you get championships. You’re asking me about producers?’” Jalen Rose
Rose’s story highlights a couple of interesting points. First, Kobe was the ultimate competitor whose sole focus was on championships (let’s be honest, we already knew that). Second, KB immediately knew Dwight wouldn’t work on the Lakers. And boy was he right.
Dwight Howard had a nightmare season and proved Kobe Bryant right
Given his ultra-competitive nature, Bryant would’ve loved to see Dwight prove him wrong and help deliver a ring. But soon after Howard suited up for his new team, everyone saw what Kobe saw months prior.
The superstar center struggled all season in developing chemistry with Bryant and other teammates. The disconnect, along with a torn labrum he managed to play through, led Howard to average 17.1 points, his lowest total since his second season in Orlando. He also averaged 3.0 turnovers and 3.8 personal fouls, the latter of which was a career high.
Despite getting off to a putrid 17-25 start and firing head coach Mike Brown, the Lakers had a big second half under new coach Mike D’Antoni to finish the year at 45-37. But the seven-seed Lakers were no match for the San Antonio Spurs, who swept LA in four. With Bryant out after tearing his Achilles nine days before the postseason, Howard averaged a team-high 17.0 points against San Antonio before getting ejected in the third quarter of Game 4.
After a poor performance on the court and feuds with Bryant off it, Howard left the Lakers in free agency in 2013 to sign with the Houston Rockets. Eventually, the big man returned to LA in 2019 — three years after Kobe’s retirement — and won his elusive ring as a role player rather than franchise star.
Even though Howard eventually redeemed himself in the eyes of Lakers fans, the failure of the 2012-13 season will live on forever. And while that season surprised many, Kobe was not one of them.
All statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference.
RELATED: Dwight Howard Remains Forever Indebted to Kobe Bryant: ‘Thank You for Saying That I Was Soft’
Lakers news: LeBron James reaches insane Kobe Bryant, Shaq feat
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LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers grabbed a much-needed win on Friday night, beating the Orlando Magic by nine points. It’s no secret it hasn’t been a great season for the 2020 NBA champions though, despite a busy offseason where they brought in a boatload of new players, headlined by the struggling Russell Westbrook.
Nonetheless, despite the Lakers’ inability to play defense, LeBron is absolutely showing out right now and he reached a very impressive feat against Orlando that put him in exclusive company with three franchise legends.
Via NBA Stats:
LeBron James has scored 25+ points in 16 straight games. The only other Lakers to do this are Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Elgin Baylor. (@EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/grr5iwtXPY — NBA.com/Stats (@nbastats) January 22, 2022
Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Elgin Baylor. Not bad, Bron. The King erupted for 29 points and has honestly been doing everything imaginable to help the Lakers turn the ship around. He’s currently averaging 28.8 points, 6.4 assists, and 7.6 rebounds per night. James sits just a tad behind the injured Kevin Durant as the top scorer in the Association.
On a more positive note, the Lakers are 6-4 in their last 10 games and currently have a 23-23 record. However, they do have a number of very tough matchups in the coming week, with the Heat, Nets, 76ers, Hornets, and Hawks all on the schedule. Needless to say, LeBron is going to have to keep playing out of his mind while hopefully getting some help from the supporting cast on the Lakers roster.
Kobe Bryant topic of Chaucer’s virtual author talk
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COURTESY PHOTOS
Mike Sielski, author of “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality,” will talk about his book during a Chaucer’s virtual talk Feb. 1.
Journalist Mike Sielski will discuss his book, “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality,” during a virtual talk hosted by Chaucer’s Books at 6 p.m. Feb. 1.
To attend this event on Zoom, visit us06web.zoom.us/j/83256633257.
To watch this event live and recorded on Chaucer’s YouTube channel, visit www.youtube.com/channel/UCRVxV4ZOqkmnBj8TvT25NFQ.
In “The Rise,” readers will travel from the neighborhood streets of Southwest Philadelphia — where Mr. Bryant’s father, Joe, became a local basketball standout — to the Bryant family’s isolation in Italy, where Kobe spent his formative years, to the leafy suburbs of Lower Merion, where Kobe’s legend was born.
The story will trace Mr. Bryant’s career and life at Lower Merion – he led the Aces to the 1995-96 Pennsylvania state championship, a dramatic underdog run for a team with just one star player – and the run-up to the 1996 NBA draft, where Kobe’s dream of playing pro basketball culminated in his acquisition by the Los Angeles Lakers.
In researching and writing “The Rise,” Mr. Sielski had an advantage over other writers who have attempted to chronicle Mr. Bryant’s life: access to a series of never-before-released interviews with him during his senior season and early days in the NBA. For a quarter century, these tapes and transcripts preserved Mr. Bryant’s thoughts, dreams and goals from his teenage years, and they contained insights into and told stories about him that have never been revealed before.
Mr. Sielski is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and author. The Associated Press Sports Editors voted him the country’s top sports columnist in 2015, and his previous book, “Fading Echoes: A True Story of Rivalry and Brotherhood from the Football Field to the Fields of Honor,” was published in 2009. He lives in Bucks County, Pa., with his wife and two sons.
email: mmcmahon@newspress.com
Close-up images of Gianna and Kobe Bryant’s remains were ‘shown off in bars and at an awards gala,’ widow’s lawyers say in court filing
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(CNN) Weeks before her lawsuit is set to go to trial, lawyers for Vanessa Bryant allege photos of the crash that killed her husband, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, their daughter, and others were shared widely, according to court documents.
“Discovery has shown that the close-up photos of Gianna and Kobe’s remains were passed around on at least twenty-eight Sheriff’s Department devices and by at least a dozen firefighters, and shown off in bars and at an awards gala,” says a filing from Bryant’s lawyers filed Thursday. “It has also shown that Defendants engaged in a cover up, destroying the direct forensic evidence of their misconduct and requiring extensive circumstantial evidence to establish the full extent of that misconduct.”
Skip Miller, partner of the Barondess Law Firm and outside counsel for the county, had no comment.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant were among nine people killed in the crash in Calabasas, California, in January 2020.
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Kobe Bryant Had A Hilarious Response When Asked About The Difference Between No. 8 And No. 24: “8 Has Something That 24 Will Never Have… The Ability To Grow Hair.”
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Kobe Bryant Had A Hilarious Response When Asked About The Difference Between No. 8 And No. 24: “8 Has Something That 24 Will Never Have… The Ability To Grow Hair.”
Kobe Bryant was one of the most incredible players in the history of the NBA. Bryant had an incredibly long career, playing for almost 20 years. And in that 20-year run, Kobe found incredible success, winning numerous championships, and several individual accolades in that time.
One of the things that have defined Kobe Bryant’s career is his jersey numbers. For the first 10 years of his career, Kobe wore the number 8 jersey. In 2006, Kobe changed his jersey number from 8 to 24, the number he would wear for another 10 years until he eventually called time on his legendary career.
When one reporter asked him at his jersey retirement what the difference was between his 8 and 24 jerseys and which he prefers, Kobe had a hilarious response, noting that his time with his number 24 jersey meant that he did not have the ability to grow hair like he had when he wore the number 8 jersey.
“I kind of go back and forth. 8 has something that 24 will never ever have… the ability to grow hair.”
Kobe was clearly having fun with the reporter and the fans ahead of his jersey retirement ceremony. The Lakers retired both numbers, 8 and 24, for Kobe Bryant, showing how much he means to the franchise. Many consider Kobe to be the greatest player in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Previously, Kobe has explained why he made the decision to switch his jersey from number 8 to number 24 in 2006, saying that it provided a ‘clean slate’ for him going forward.
While wearing the number 8, Kobe found incredible success, winning 3 NBA championships consecutively, between 2000 and 2002, being part of the last team to three-peat in the NBA. And after changing his jersey to 24, Kobe won 2 more NBA championships consecutively in 2009 and 2010, and also won his first regular-season MVP and Finals MVP, winning the latter twice in 2009 and 2010.