At his absolute peak, Dwight Howard was a physical specimen the likes of which the NBA had probably never seen before.
He was a freak athlete for a man his size and was quite an innovative dunker too. Howard dunked on a whole lot of players during his time in the NBA, but there was one man he really wanted to dunk on but wasn’t able to, Kobe Bryant.
“Dude, I wanted to get Kobe bad like how he got me,” Howard said. “He a guard so it would never happen but Kobe dunked on me crazy. I wanted to get him back.”
Who’s the one guy @DwightHoward always wanted to dunk on but never did? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/JCosPPphIN
— theScore (@theScore) June 20, 2023
That Bryant dunk came during Howard’s rookie season of 2004-05 with the Orlando Magic. It was part of a great performance from Kobe as he had 41 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, and 2 steals on the night, but he still wasn’t able to get the win, as the Magic won 122-113. That iconic dunk will live on forever, though and Howard would have loved to have gotten some revenge for it, but it wasn’t to be.
Dwight Howard And Kobe Bryant’s Relationship
Just under eight years after this dunk, Dwight and Kobe would be teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers, but they famously failed to get along. Their head coach back then was Mike D’Antoni and he revealed the two of them did not like each other.
Bryant once explained their relationship using an interesting analogy, which implied he told Howard some harsh truths about himself, which he probably didn’t take too well. Their relationship did improve by the time Kobe retired and Howard stated they did get along.
Dwight has also been full of praise for Kobe in recent years, going as far as to say Bryant multiplied and perfected everything that Michael Jordan did. It is a real shame that their pairing didn’t work out back then, as they did have the potential to be something special.
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