The opening night game between the visiting Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers will be tipping off in less than 12 hours, but the Lakers’ head coach Byron Scott already gave out the first blow as he was recently asked about the failed partnership between Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard just two seasons ago and his response was quite straightforward, via Mark Medina of the LA Daily News:
“My outside perspective is Kobe is a real serious guy and wants to win championships,” Scott said. “I don’t know if Dwight is that serious about it. I know No. 24 is and that probably was the clash.”
Clearly, we could say shots were fired over here which further spices things up the tension a bit for before their game tonight. The ‘uncertain’ relationship between him (Bryant) and Howard is not solely Bryant’s fault as a lot of factors are still to be considered in the mix, like Mike D’Antoni and his ‘Run and Gun’ system which clearly did not utilize the full potential of the team and of course, the lack of chemistry in the roster.
But this is in the past already so let’s stop drowning ourselves with this drama and focus on the present—the now.
And like I said earlier—in just a few more hours, both Kobe and Howard will finally be able to somewhat ‘settle’ this issue as they face off on the court for the first time since Howard’s departure. For sure, a lot of physicality and drama will surface throughout the game and it’ll definitely be interesting to see how these former teammates will perform against one another.
Howard may be in the better team now, but knowing Kobe—he always puts up a fight.
Benjamin Felix Santos is currently a senior college student from the Philippines. An aspiring NBA writer, who bleeds the purple and gold. His love and passion for the game will never die.
Follow him on twitter: @biefsantos
