Dwight Howard entered the NBA as the No.1 pick, but it didn’t take long for Kobe Bryant to give him a ‘welcome to the league’ moment.
With a reputation that saw him widely recognized as America’s best high school basketball player, Howard chose to forego college and declared for the 2004 draft.
He was selected first overall by the Orlando Magic, joining a depleted squad that had finished with only 21 victories in the previous season, and one that had just lost perennial NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady.
Despite those issues, Howard made an immediate impact.
He finished his rookie season with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds, and set several NBA records in the process.
Howard’s importance to the Magic was further highlighted when he became the first player in league history directly out of high school to start all 82 games during his debut campaign.
But it was during one of those games, in November 2004, that Bryant offered him a far from warm ‘welcome to the NBA‘.
As he was getting his first taste of the league, the young Howard quickly realized that despite his impressive high school career, he was still just a rookie on the big stage.
During a game between the Magic and Kobe’s Los Angeles Lakers, the late basketball legend dunked on Howard and left the crowd ‘in awe’.
Speaking about the moment back in 2011, Howard explained: “Kobe, he dunked on me. That’s when I realized I was still a rookie.
“I tried to just stand there. I was thinking he was gonna shoot a jump shot.
“He came down the lane and dunked it so hard, and it was just like, ‘boom!’
“And I don’t remember hearing nothing else, but ‘boom’, and then I heard, ‘oh, wow!’
“The whole crowd was in awe, and I was like, man, I just got dunked on. And that’s like the first time I ever been dunked on in my whole life.”
Howard, who has since gone on to become an NBA legend in his own right, also revealed that he was ‘clowned’ by fans and teammates for the rest of the year.
He continued: “I got clowned, not just by my teammates, but my family and my friends.
“I could go to the mall and I would see a guy asking for an autograph, but he’d have a shirt that got a picture of me getting dunked on by Kobe.
“And that’s not a good feeling.”
Howard and Bryant crossed paths plenty more times after that infamous dunk.
The pair famously went toe-to-toe in the NBA Finals in 2009 – With Kobe’s Lakers winning in five games.
They then became teammates in Los Angeles for the 2012-13 season, but it was a campaign marred by subpar play and reports of locker room discord.
Despite having a starting lineup of five All-Stars that year, the Lakers failed to contend for the NBA championship.
Instead, the team struggled after changing head coaches and implementing multiple offenses, and were eventually swept in the first round of the playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs.
