Dwight Howard Says He's over Kobe Bryant, but His Actions Scream Otherwise
LOS ANGELES — Dwight Howard is going to have a big-time season.
For all that he is not, he still is a great player. He's also healthier than he was in his lost season in Los Angeles with the Lakers in 2012-13.
The season opener Tuesday night between the Houston Rockets and Lakers was Howard's time to offer a peek at what lies ahead of him. And it's at a time when the aging superstar teammate he spurned, Kobe Bryant, 36, is just trying to hold it together a bit longer.
Despite missing half of training camp with a bruised knee suffered in practice, Howard was dominant right from the start. He wasn't perfect (13 points and 11 rebounds in only 21 minutes; 3-of-5 from the field, 7-of-16 from the line), but he ruled the paint at both ends, except when some iffy foul calls sat him down.
The Rockets ran circles around the Lakers in a 108-90 win, offering a golden opportunity for Howard simply to be the bigger man.
He wasn't.
Howard nailed Bryant in the jaw with an elbow, drawing a flagrant-1 foul, and then the two exchanged words. The Rockets were ahead by 25 points with 7:07 left in the game, and Bryant had taken the opportunity to show his frustration by standing up to Howard and trying to deny his outlet pass rather than just retreat on defense.
Bryant was called for a personal foul for hitting Howard's arm. If Howard had just waited for teammate Patrick Beverley to take a few more steps and create a passing lane—instead of swinging those elbows to the right and then to the left—it would've been Bryant who looked like the desperate fool.
And it would've been a very apt moment for Howard to do his usual routine of laughing it off, showing he really has moved on and is above this ongoing fray.
But that didn't happen because that isn't really the case.
This was the first time Bryant and Howard had played against each other since Howard left the Lakers in 2013 free agency. Bryant missed all four meetings last season with injuries, although they have another matchup coming up in three weeks in Houston.
Before this tipoff, Howard was one of the first players on the court. He slapped hands with former Rockets teammate Jeremy Lin, then retreated under the basket and stayed there while Bryant came out for the usual handshakes with opposing players. Bryant spent extra time with Rockets James Harden and Trevor Ariza, but Howard didn't come forward. So Bryant and Howard did not have the customary fist bump or any acknowledgement.
If Howard is ready to let it all go, as he urged reporters to do earlier Tuesday ("It's over with now," he said), he could've been waiting there for Bryant to go through the motions of what can be just a formality instead of avoiding it.
Yet, as was the case in his bungled exit from Orlando and his bumpy season with the Lakers (and even last week when he lacerated his right forearm in some incident away from the court, missed the final exhibition game, but declared, "I'm not going to talk about it"), Howard struggles with communication unless it's on terms with which he is fully comfortable.
That's a problem in a team leader or a mature man, which is why Bryant is so quick to jump back to disparaging Howard.
"Soft," Bryant yelled at Howard on the court after absorbing the elbow.
And after the game, Bryant was again treating Howard like an underling, lumping him in with 19-year-old rookie Julius Randle, whom Lakers coach Byron Scott said could be seen crying a bit in the training room after suffering a broken right tibia in his first NBA game.
Bryant referred to Randle as a "kid" in describing how tough it is for that to happen to a veteran player but especially someone so young. Then Bryant also called Howard, about a month away from turning 29, a "kid" in backhanded postgame praise that actually supported his earlier "soft" sentiment.
"You can't help but like him; he's a teddy bear," Bryant said. "You can't help but like him; I really mean that. He's a really nice kid. But when you're competing and you have a goal in mind, I know one way to get there, and there are certain times we don't see eye to eye.
"But that wasn't one of those situations. He elbowed me in the face, and I'm going to let him know I don't like that."
Howard predictably refused after the game to discuss his tiff with Bryant.
"We won the game," Howard said. "It's over. It's basketball. I'm not even focused on it."
Howard's focus rightly should be on having a renaissance season of his own while so many others are focused on whether Bryant can bounce back from his injuries.
If you saw the eye-popping lift and agility Howard showed a month ago in the Instagram video he posted of himself soaring and dunking, you can see how he is still the physical specimen every franchise covets.
Rockets coach Kevin McHale confirmed it before the game, saying Howard—who had April 2012 surgery to remove herniated disc fragments in his lower back—is bouncing and bending far better now.
McHale said Howard looks night-and-day better from a year ago with his flexibility. He also said Howard already looked night-and-day better a year ago compared to when the Rockets signed him in July.
Howard passed on the opportunity to work alongside Harden with USA Basketball last summer, trying to get smarter about training with stretching and strengthening, hoping to save his juice for this NBA season.
Physically, Howard does look really, really good.
For his part, Bryant was also decent (19 points, three rebounds, two assists on 6-of-17 shooting in 29 minutes). He tried to make clear that he's healthy, saying, "I feel absolutely fine."
Their issues with each other, however, are not over how well they can play.
"They don't like each other," Scott said.
No, it's more that they don't respect each other.
And they sure didn't start Tuesday night.
Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.
