Dwight Howard: "Kobe never offered to teach me how to be a champion"

Dwight Howard: Kobe never offered to teach me how to be a champion
Dan Feldman Jul 6, 2013, 9:30 AM EDT
53 Comments
Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard
Remember when Kobe Bryant tried to get Dwight Howard to stay in Los Angeles by telling him, “Let me teach you how to be a champion”?

Never happened, Howard says.

Howard in a Q&A with Alex Kennedy of Hoops World:
What did you think of Kobe Bryant’s comments that he could teach you how to be a winner?

DH: “He didn’t say anything of that sort. People twisted a lot of stuff that he said. But in my personal opinion, I’m a winner. I’m a winner because I’ve been playing for nine years when the average career for an NBA player is three years. I’m a winner because I made it to the NBA from a small school in Atlanta, GA, with 16 people in a class. I’m a winner because I’m succeeding in life. I’ve had problems and I’m not better than the next man, but I’m going to push myself to be a winner when it comes to winning a championship. But he didn’t say anything like that and a lot of people twisted what he did say.”

There are many ingredients necessary to become an NBA champion.

One is an incredible drive, often becoming a willingness to let basketball come before everything else in your life. Kobe has that skill – maybe even too much of it – but, without a doubt, he has it. (Whether he can actually teach it to Howard is a whole other question.)

But talent is also necessary, and no matter how much teaching Kobe would have done, the Lakers don’t have enough talent. Kobe is old and injured, Pau Gasol is old and Steve Nash is even older. Not to detract from how great those players once were, but this was no longer a championship-caliber team.

The Rockets have the talent to win a championship, or at least come close. There’s no guarantee they’ll learn how to harness it in the playoffs’ toughest moments, but Houston coach Kevin McHale might be capable of teaching the young team how to do it.

I’d rather bank on learning how to be a champion than learning how to be insanely talented. Apparently, Howard agrees.
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I wonder who was the nice gentleman that started this little rumor. Kobe certainly has a reputation for being headstrong, assertive, and unyielding. But making false claims and twisting statements is rather disingenuous.

KJ

gawd, now I'm feeling sorry for Kobe. Sorry Dwight, but you jest arent good enuf. Kobe wanted to help but he knows when he can't do the impossible. Height helps but it can't replace talent.

Lesson 1

Shot 6-24 in a game 7 and have Sterns henchmen give you all the calls.