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nice, keep the drama coming
Adrian Wojnarowski
32 minutes ago
Partners in time? Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard were both right to be skeptical of their union
BOSTON – Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard had always been a reluctant partnership, two stars long suspecting what turned out to be the indisputable truth: They were destined to be terrible teammates.
When Bryant and Howard hung up on a pre-trade deadline call a year ago, the su ions of a toxic mix were confirmed with a most uncomfortable conversation. They had different visions on the way Howard would fit into the Lakers, which promised to compound the gulf between them as people. They were going to win with the Lakers and tolerate each other; or lose and develop a deep disdain.
On his way out of the Garden, out of a humiliating 116-95 loss to the Boston Celtics, Bryant returned a clichéd question – "Are Dwight and you on the same page?" – without a clichéd response.
With a bemused face and a shrug, Bryant told Yahoo! Sports: "What page is there to be on? Defend. Rebound…"
He shrugged again.
"I mean, what else is on the page?"
Nevertheless, Bryant reached out to Howard early on Thursday to diffuse the drama, he told Yahoo! Sports. He fired off a text to message to insist that a part of his interview with the great Boston sportswriter, Jackie MacMullan, had been misconstrued in the public eye. Bryant swore he wasn't calling out Howard about sitting three straight games with a shoulder injury, that he wasn't questioning his toughness.
"Listen, I really think people ran in the wrong direction with those quotes," Bryant told Y! Sports. "And I think that put Dwight on the defense, put him a little on edge. But that wasn't the intention, nor the purpose.
"I didn't say anything earth-shattering. I didn't say anything I haven't been saying all year.
"Honestly, I didn't take a run at him."
Truth be told, the Lakers are in deep, deep trouble – 3½ games back of the eighth spot in the Western Conference. They've lost Pau Gasol for several weeks and could be completely out of the playoff chase once he returns to the floor. Howard was out of synch in his return, fouling out in 28 minutes with little, if no, impact on the game.
More and more, it's become clear that Howard won't be his dominant self this season. The torn labrum could need surgery this summer, a league source said, and Howard couldn't even guarantee he'd feel strong enough to play in Charlotte on Friday night. From a herniated disk in his back to the torn labrum, from the pressures inside and outside the organization to get back on the floor, Howard has been reduced to a s of himself.
In Howard's defense, the doctors had told him that he could expect to be out with back surgery into December – even January – and yet he had rehabilitated so well that he made opening night.
Few players took the physical beating laid upon Howard in Orlando, the hard fouls, the wild swings, the shots delivered on the league's Goliath that were long tolerated. He did play through the back injury a year ago, until surgery was unavoidable.
"They can say what they want to say," Howard said softly at his locker. "None of these people are playing. None of these people have had injuries. They can say what they want about playing through pain or playing through injuries.
"I spent a whole summer trying to recover because I wanted to play through pain, show people I'm tough."
Part of the problem of Howard's clowning act is that people don't take him seriously in times of crisis. It's easier to doubt his toughness, tenacity, when they're watching him grab the microphone to do impressions on team charters or booming farts in the locker room. Bryant never wanted Howard's disposition to rule the day in the Lakers' locker room, never wanted his own culture of seriousness and duty to be undermined with the frivolity that comes with Howard.
This was Bryant's concern before the trade this summer, and after it. Rest assured, there was a reason the Lakers were third behind the Brooklyn Nets and Dallas Mavericks on Howard's preferred list of trade partners. First of all, there were doubts about the depth of talent to win a championship – and those turned out to be legitimate. What's more, he knew the partnership with Bryant would be troublesome for him. And when Bryant and Steve Nash were enthusiastic about the arrival of Mike D'Antoni as coach, Howard badly wanted to play for Phil Jackson.
D'Antoni had no use for Howard with Team USA, nor the New York Knicks when his name was raised in possible trade discussions. D'Antoni made sure to tell everyone Howard had been medically cleared to play in each of the three games he missed recently, and he sounded minimally sympathetic toward Howard's endurance of pain on Thursday night.
For the Lakers, Jackson would've been the right coach to thrust Bryant and Howard together. D'Antoni hasn't a chance to do it. For now, the Lakers are too far gone to think there's a bonding process that'll serve to salvage this season. Yes, the Lakers had won six of seven games since the cleansing of that team meeting in Memphis, but everything has changed this week.
Gasol's gone, Howard is searching and these Lakers simply aren't constructed to resurrect themselves in the playoff chase. For the future, the Lakers' play hasn't changed, nor will it. They have to give Dwight Howard a chance to recuperate his back, his shoulder, and understand that he can eventually still be a franchise center.
And yet, as Bryant told MacMullan, "We don't have time for [Howard's shoulder] to heal. We need some urgency." Bryant has been around a long time to be too surprised his words were construed as a call to arms for Howard. Make no mistake: That interview practically promised Howard would be in the lineup on Thursday night, that he would push through the pain and redirect the narrative on himself.
Nevertheless, Howard still seemed bothered with Bryant, and, well, Bryant seemed unbothered with it. He shot Howard his text, let him know he wasn't making a run at him. Whatever. From the start, this partnership promised to be an uneasy proposition, and it's been something of a self-perpetuating prophecy. Kobe and Dwight always knew the deal here. With winning, perhaps they could tolerate each other. With losing, a deep disdain.
"We communicate," Bryant told Y! Sports. "We do often." This doesn't mean they have a relationship, or trust, and that's part of the reason Bryant is a minimalist when it comes to the sharing of the basketball season's page. All along, they were destined to be terrible teammates. They knew it, but could do nothing to stop an inevitable consolidation of their talents. In the end, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard need each other, and that's still the best chance for the salvation of these Los Angeles Lakers. Someday soon, they'll need to go far deeper on that page together. Someday soon, the future of the franchise depends upon it.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--pa...090109255.html
nice, keep the drama coming
Kobe is a terrible team mate, period. And it's absolutely mind boggling how they complain about the the talent deep. 4 hofs + 2 all-stars, 2 mvps, 2 dpoys + 1 first team all-defense, I mean what kind of talent Kobe needs to succeed?
Hey ... every single one of those hall of famers minus Kobe is dealing or dealt with injuries at some point during the season and had to sit out games. LAL's frontcourt is completely obliterated by injuries (Gasol, Howard, Hill).
? Your the one with Johnson's signature.
what you're saying is that he can't do it by himself
Except Duncan, no other players in the history of the NBA could do it by themselves.
Yeah, they're playing almost as bad now as they were when everyone was healthy!
Dirk and Hakeem.
I wouldn't put Dirk up there, the 2011 Mavs were not a one man team, as evidenced by the major suckage of them after the departures of Chandler, Terry, Barea, and Kidd, while Dirk is still there leading them to a record this season
yeah, Duncan makes the Spurs look like a $1,000,000,000 team
I was being sarcastic. Duncan never did it by himself and he failed miserably with a stacked olympic team.
False. Duncan won 03 by himself.
Failed miserably so Manu could have his greatest triumph. Just another testament to Tim's amazing leadership and qualities as a teammate.
kobe just wants dwight howard to be his tyson chandler
he's been trying to condition howard for that role since day one by peeing on the ball and hogging it. too bad howard isn't backing down.
As spurfan says: "Excuses".
Following spurfan's logic, i choose to ignore the context and main causing factors of said loss just to prove my point.
Duncan did medal in those Olympics... he always made the playoffs too throughout his career even though he didn't win it every year...
It's just different standards of excellence... Duncan's worst is making the playoffs... Kirby's worst is fake an injury just when he's about to miss them...
Kobe is the most over-ranked NBA, over-hyped NBA superstar ever no matter low or how you rank him- no surprise here that his leadership or lack there of is completely over the top. He needs to shut up outside the locker room.
All Kobe is trying now is to switch the blame that he cannot inspire, cannot lead and cannot motivate effectively teams without dominant players carrying him like Shaq and Gasol in their primes did and perhaps the greatest coach ever [and a leader like Derek Fisher] at his side. Nothing new here - this implosion of the Lakers is on Bryant as he has been on the floor the whole time and except for a few games in which he made to much out of making some team play with some all around play and over-hyped triple or near triple doubles agains weak opponents, has not led a lick.
At this point Kobe is the most overrated Superstar in the history of American sports. It's pathetic.
Kobe and Dwight are both terrible teammates but at this point Dwight takes the mantle of being that cancer in the locker room. Even Nash is calling him out. This is the same guy that held the Orlando franchise hostage last year eventually getting his coach fired who IMO was the perfect coach for him. He was the center piece, the first option and the city embraced him despite of his shortcomings. The Orlando press pampered him and he can do no wrong before the Dwightmare saga. Orlando was willing to give him that championship, and what did he do? He wanted to be a part of something bigger in Brooklyn and forced his way out.
I dont feel bad for Howard. He knew the situation he's getting into when he agreed to go to LA. The Lakers are still Kobe's team and until Dwight shows he's willing to pay his dues, no one is simply going to hand over those keys.
Lakers should trade him now or amnesty Kobe. You can't have both playing for the same team.
After all of these years on this board, you continue to suck with bball takes and overall assessment of what a delight Kobe is as a player, compe or and athlete. There's a reason Spurs Talk has evolved into Kobe Talk over the last few years.... There is also a reason I don't comment on the Spurs, I don't watch them.
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