Dwight Howard dishes on major difference playing with Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James on Lakers
07/05/2024 23:16
Even though he was badly snubbed from the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team back in February 2022, it’s not up for debate that Dwight Howard had one of the most impressive careers and dominant peaks in league history.
The 18-year NBA veteran is best known for his eight seasons with the Orlando Magic, a franchise for which he holds the records of most points, rebounds, blocks, free throws, games played and Win Shares, but despite the fact that Orlando was by far Dwight Howard’s most successful stop, the two teammates that he’s asked about most often are Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, a pair of GOATs who Dwight suited up alongside with the Los Angeles Lakers at two different points in his career.
On Tuesday, Dwight Howard spoke with with Mike Miller and Goran Dragic — filling in for usual co-host Udonis Haslem — on The OGs podcast, and dished on what it was like to play with two of the greatest players who have ever stepped on an NBA floor. And as we already been made aware countless times over the years, Bron and Mamba are completely different cats.
“They have this presence, and when Kobe walks into the room or LeBron walks into the room, their presence is there and you can feel it. Kobe was more so like a silent killer. He didn’t really talk too much. LeBron loves to have fun, he wants to make jokes, but when he gets on the court you know he can turn that switch, it’s crazy to watch. The mental aspect of it, LeBron is doing all the plays he’s like the coach, and Kobe’s like give me the ball and I'm going to handle it, and I think those are the two differences.”
Even though Dwight would go on to list both LeBron and Kobe as two of his top five teammates ever — along with Orlando Magic teammates Jameer Nelson, Hedo Turkoglu, and Rashard Lewis — he shared that ahead of the 2012 trade that brought him to Los Angeles, he never wanted to play for the Lakers.
“At the time, I had actually told the Magic the one place I didn't want to go was the Lakers,” Howard told Miller and Dragic. “It was no offense to the Lakers fans or anything like that but we had just lost in the finals to the Lakers and I'm like man, I want to beat Kobe. I want to beat the Lakers, not go join the Lakers.”
Dwight Howard vs. Kobe and LeBron
Three years before he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic had the opportunity to go up against LeBron James and Kobe Bryant in consecutive rounds of the 2009 NBA Playoffs. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Magic upset the top-seeded, 66-win Cleveland Cavaliers. In the series, LeBron James went scorched earth, averaging 38.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per game, and knocked down a buzzer-beater to win Game 2. But not to be outdone, Howard averaged 25.8 points and 13.0 rebounds in the series, and closed things out with a 40-point, 14-rebound performance in Game 6.
In the next round, Dwight would face Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in what turned out to be a letdown of an NBA Finals. The entire basketball world was hoping for and expecting to see LeBron versus Kobe with the Larry O’Brien Trophy on the line, but the Magic crashed the party, and in some weird way, it seems like Dwight has been penalized for messing up what was supposed to be an iconic Finals encounter. The Lakers would win the series in five, with Kobe Bryant securing his first NBA Finals MVP, and the Magic haven’t been to an NBA Finals since then.
Eleven years later, this time as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, Dwight Howard would finally get his ring, winning one in the Bubble as a teammate of LeBron James.
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