Dwight Howard disputes comments from Kobe Bryant that he was uncomfortable with Bryant's "combative" approach during their one season together.
“It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with who [Bryant] was as a player or a person, that was never the issue to me,” Howard said. “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.”
Howard was asked if his relationship with Bryant has informed how he and James Harden get along.
“We’re not super close but we do talk, we sit down, we have conversations,” Howard said of Harden. “I’ve never had any issue with James. The biggest reason for me to come to Houston was to play alongside James. I knew I made [the right decision] when I first made it, watching him play and now how he’s grown as a player and a person. It’s great to watch. I came to win. There’s no ego with me, it’s not about me. It’s about us, what we can do together. I’ve won all the individual awards, besides the MVP, and at this point all that stuff is irrelevant. What’s more important is us coming together to win a championship."
