Dwight Howard: 'I Didn't Have an Issue Back Then How Kobe Was'

Dwight Howard wants you to know that he and Kobe Bryant are cool.

As in they aren't sworn enemies who will spend the rest of their NBA careers trying to ruin one another.

Speaking with SI.com's Ben Golliver, Howard tried clearing the toxic air around the perception of his relationship with Bryant:

"

It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with who [Bryant] was as a player or a person, that was never the issue to me. I think that kind of gets twisted because of how things ended up. Everybody on that team got injured. I think we had five games together before somebody was injured. … I didn’t have an issue back then how Kobe was. Kobe wanted to win as badly as I did. Our personalities are different. I’m not a guy who is going to go off on my teammates. I tried that approach and for me it didn’t work. For Kobe, it works. He’s won a couple championships. He’s also played with some great talent. For the most part, it just wasn’t the time for us to win.

"

This drastically diverges from past reports.

Soon after Howard spurned the Los Angeles Lakers for the Houston Rockets, sources told ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne and Marc Stein that he and his representatives "strongly suggested the center would have a difficult time re-signing with the team if Bryant stayed with the franchise beyond the 2013-14 season."

Last October, Henry Abbott  wrote a scathing piece for ESPN The Magazine, wherein one Lakers source alleged Howard's departure was directly related to Bryant playing "with carte blanche."

As Golliver also notes, the lingering bad blood between Howard and Bryant boiled over in an opening-night scuffle between the two:

But Howard's comments are not so much about his defense of the past. They're about the player he is turning into, about his call to moving on and making sacrifices now that he didn't necessarily make in Los Angeles.

“I told James [Harden] that the MVP is his for the taking," he explained to Golliver. "I want him to go out there and dominate and play hard every night, lead this team...I will do whatever I have to do to: score, rebound, whatever. I don’t want him to change up anything."

These sentiments come on the heels of the big man's return to action, after he watched Houston not just stay afloat without him, but thrive.

Howard has missed more games this season (38) than in his previous 10 combined (36). The Rockets, meanwhile, are 25-13 without him and have remained in contention for the Western Conference's second-best record, in large part because of Harden's MVP performances.

There are no more arguments over which player is Houston's alpha dog. Harden is younger and spry enough to carry the team on his own. He is a megastar. Howard is at a point in his career where ceding control and taking a step back is one of the most valuable contributions he can make—not only to the team, but himself.

"Howard might be entering a new stage in his career in which he shifts from offensive focal point to complementary star," writes Jesus Gomez for SB Nation. "If he's happy with that role—and what he's saying lately shows he is—he could not only extend his prime, but rehabilitate his image after the hits it took over the past few years."

Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Nothing could be better for the Rockets as they gear up for a championship run. They have a firm hold on the West's No. 3 seed and are just two games behind the second-place Memphis Grizzlies with 11 left to play.

Best of all, Howard is healthy again and has seemingly gained a fresh perspective on his career and role moving forward. It's an epiphany he never had alongside Bryant in Los Angeles.

Perhaps things would have turned out differently with the Lakers if Howard took the approach he's taking now, or if he and Bryant reached the mutual understanding he and Harden now share.

Or maybe, just maybe, Howard needed this—the change of scenery, the time on the sidelines and a younger teammate—to morph into the bigger-picture thinker he appears to be now.