Role Players come into the NBA or any other top-tier sport for that matter, keeping a far different set of aim than somebody having skills or athleticism of the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, or Stephen Curry or the size of Dwight Howard.
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Matt Barnes was one such player who had none of those things in abundance, exactly knew his limitations, and found his place for 14 years in the league averaging well over 20 minutes in some of the better teams.
He played with several superstars in their primes or at the latter end of it. Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Kobe, Chris Paul, and the then next-gen superstar in Curry, to name some.
However, he never felt more comfortable with any of them than he did with the Orlando Magic juggernaut Dwight Howard.
Matt Barnes was most comfortable with Dwight Howard
Team chemistry is another thing that matters a lot for role players and the franchise to decide on whether to continue their short-term relationship or put a stop to it even earlier.
And how a leader or the face of that franchise treats them determines the level of comfort the other players feel in that locker room each night. Matt Barnes recently revealed on a recent Bootleg Kev Podcast appearance that he felt the most comfortable with Dwight Howard despite having developed a great rivalry later on in their careers.
Barnes choosing Howard over Stephen Curry and Kobe Bryant tells us something
Kobe, much like his idol Michael Jordan, could not have been an ideal teammate to share your peaceful time with, surely not when the team wasn’t winning and when Barnes joined the Black Mamba, the Lakers weren’t winning championships. You can imagine how Kobe would have been at the time.
Fast-forward to his time with the Warriors in 2017. Although Barnes arrived there for just half a season as Kevin Durant got injured and played some 20-odd regular season games with them, they must have been enough because he also won his only Championship there.
He also has tremendous respect in GSW and speaks a great deal about Stephen Curry. Still, choosing Dwight over him tells us how humble Howard must have been as a human being.
Barnes played with him only in the 2009-10 season. The year in which he was challenging LeBron James and other superstars for the MVP award. If there was a chance, this story just betters Howard’s persona even more.
