Kobe Bryant was just any other human when he was on the court, but he was an intense basketball player. Before Bryant and Dwight Howard became teammates, they were rivals on different teams. Even after being teammates, they didn’t share the best of relationships in the locker room. However, Bryant’s most savage and ruthless moment against Howard came against the Orlando Magic. In a game against the Magic, Kobe put the DPOY on a poster, which silenced the crowd and amused Kobe’s wife, Vanessa Bryant.
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The first highlight of the rivalry between Dwight and Bryant goes back to the 2009 NBA Finals. Despite having a stellar performance in Game 6 of the Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Howard was completely outplayed by Bryant. He opened Game 1 with a massive 40-point performance. He averaged 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, and 5.6 rebounds in a five-game series. Howard, who was, as usual, a monster on the glass, was unable to create a tough matchup for the Lakers. During the 2012-13 season, Howard joined Bryant in the troubled season.
Matt Barnes embarrasses Dwight Howard about Bryant
When Howard joined the Lakers, he said that was his toughest task. He knew adjusting to a hyper-competitive guy would be extremely difficult. Kobe was one of those players that he grew up watching and having faced him in the finals, he knew it would be difficult to get around the Mamba Mentality. Since Kobe and the Lakers won the finals, Howard said that he wanted to beat Kobe’s a**. In an interview from 8 months ago that Vanessa liked, Dwight said:
“How to deal with somebody that I grew up watching as a child. We teammates We faced each other finals now I want to beat his ass. But we are teammtes now. Sh*t! I can’t beat his a**.”
Here’s a screenshot of Vanessa liking the post:
Matt Barnes recalled the poster dunk on Howard in 2004 and said that it was a very hard dunk. Listening to Barnes, Howard was pretty uncomfortable, perhaps because he was reliving the horror and was embarrassed. Interestingly, Vanessa, Kobe’s wife, liked the post, which was pretty amusing.
Dwight Howard finally won a championship with the Lakers after a failed season with Kobe Bryant
Howard played only one season with the Lakers in 2012-13 with Bryant, and they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs. DH was traded to the Rockets the next season, where he played for three seasons before being traded to the Hawks.
However, the former Defensive Player of the Year rejoined the Lakers in the 2019-20 season and finally won a championship with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. An emotional Howard finally felt like he had paid off the debt to the Laker nation and to himself.
