“I Could Beat Jordan” - Dwight Howard BREAKS SILENCE On Rumors, Diddy & LeBron, Locker Room Drama | PBD Podcast | Ep. 603

Summary

PBD Podcast Episode 603: “I Could Beat Jordan” - Dwight Howard BREAKS SILENCE On Rumors, Diddy & LeBron, Locker Room Drama

Release Date: June 18, 2025

Hosts: Patrick Bet-David and Guest Dwight Howard

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the PBD Podcast, host Patrick Bet-David engages in an in-depth conversation with NBA superstar Dwight Howard. Stripping away the advertisements and non-content segments, the discussion delves into Dwight's experiences in the NBA, his relationships with iconic players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, locker room dynamics, personal growth, and his perspectives on basketball legends such as Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal.

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Dwight Howard’s Journey in the NBA

Transition from Orlando to Los Angeles

Dwight Howard reminisces about his transition from the Orlando Magic to the Los Angeles Lakers. He reflects on the disappointment of not securing a long-term contract, expressing how it still affects him emotionally:

Dwight Howard [05:00]: "But then when I never got the deal, you know, I think it still hurts me a little bit to this day."

He discusses the expectations placed upon him as a number one draft pick and the pressure of joining a storied franchise like the Lakers:

Dwight Howard [04:44]: "I was just trying to do my job. I'm securing two more years. That's all I was thinking about."

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Locker Room Dynamics and Relationships with Kobe and LeBron

Kobe Bryant: A Complex Relationship

Dwight Howard opens up about his time with Kobe Bryant, highlighting both admiration and challenges:

Dwight Howard [08:22]: "I have to admit, playing with Kobe was a mix of respect and frustration. Our communication was minimal, and it felt like we weren't fully meshed as teammates."

He recounts specific instances that illustrate their strained relationship, including a memorable scuffle:

Dwight Howard [28:27]: "I feel like Kobe's [elbow] was intentional. Cause first of all, we're winning by 25... Why is he doing this?"

Despite the tension, Dwight acknowledges Kobe's dedication and skill:

Dwight Howard [34:06]: "He was just darker than Pippin... but he was focused on his goals and didn't let anything stop him."

LeBron James: A Preferred Teammate

Contrasting his relationship with Kobe, Dwight expresses a stronger bond with LeBron James, valuing his leadership and camaraderie:

Dwight Howard [36:54]: "As a teammate, LeBron was the one I preferred. We had a championship together, and our run was the longest."

He discusses how LeBron's presence influenced team dynamics and his personal growth:

Dwight Howard [37:05]: "Knowing what we know now, you'd have to go with LeBron. His longevity and overall contribution to basketball are unparalleled."

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Comparisons with Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal

Michael Jordan: The Ultimate Benchmark

Dwight Howard engages in a candid discussion about Michael Jordan, questioning some of the legendary statistics associated with Jordan's athleticism:

Dwight Howard [63:25]: "There's no way he [Jordan] had a 48-inch vertical. If Jordan really had a 48, he should be sitting on the rim."

He delves into the authenticity of some of Jordan's feats, expressing skepticism about their plausibility:

Dwight Howard [64:21]: "Michael Jordan's vertical leap is 42 inches."

Shaquille O'Neal: A Mutual Respect Amidst Tension

The conversation shifts to Shaquille O'Neal, where Dwight recounts past tensions but emphasizes recent reconciliations:

Dwight Howard [77:57]: "We sat down, cleared some things up, and apologized. There's no more animosity between us."

He reflects on their shared history and the eventual understanding that developed over time:

Dwight Howard [112:16]: "We had a great conversation, and I really appreciate him because I grew up watching him and have the utmost respect for him."

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Mental Health and Personal Growth

Dwight Howard opens up about the mental challenges faced by NBA players, including his own experiences with injuries and the pressures of fame:

Dwight Howard [14:18]: "Playing in the NBA for a very long time can, you know, you could get mentally ill for you sometimes."

He shares how his time in Taiwan contributed positively to his mental health, offering a reprieve from the fast-paced NBA life:

Dwight Howard [16:12]: "Playing in Taiwan was very beneficial to my mental health. It gave me peace and a chance to learn about a different culture."

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Endorsements and Personal Ventures

Throughout the podcast, various advertisements are interspersed, but they are brief and do not detract significantly from the core conversation. Towards the end, Dwight Howard discusses his interests outside basketball, including his love for Egyptian mythology and personal spirituality:

Dwight Howard [123:05]: "My faith has been a big part of my career. Everything in life has balance."

He also touches upon his tattoos, explaining their spiritual significance:

Dwight Howard [124:11]: "All my tattoos have some type of meaning, like pushing away negativity and calling in positivity."

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Future Plans and Reflections

As the conversation draws to a close, Dwight Howard reflects on his career and future aspirations. With an imminent Hall of Fame induction, he contemplates his legacy and the lessons he's learned:

Dwight Howard [125:34]: "I've put in the hard work in the gym, in the weight room... Now, with basketball coming to a close, I want to guide my kids and find who I am outside of the game."

He expresses a desire to mentor the next generation and invest time in personal development beyond his NBA career.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dwight Howard on Mental Health:

  "Playing in the NBA for a very long time can, you know, you could get mentally ill for you sometimes." [14:18]

• Dwight on Kobe’s Influence:

  "When I say Kobe's the asshole, emotionally and mentally, I was fed up." [01:12]

• Dwight on LeBron vs. Kobe as Teammates:

  "As a teammate, LeBron was the one I preferred." [36:54]

• Dwight on Michael Jordan’s Vertical Leap:

  "Michael Jordan's vertical leap is 42 inches." [63:25]

• Dwight on Reconciliation with Shaq:

  "We sat down, cleared some things up, and apologized." [112:16]

• Dwight on Personal Growth:

  "Everything in life has balance." [123:37]

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Conclusion

In this revealing episode, Dwight Howard provides an unfiltered look into his NBA career, the dynamics with some of the game's greatest, and his personal growth both on and off the court. Patrick Bet-David facilitates a conversation that sheds light on the complexities of professional sports, the importance of mental health, and the journey of self-discovery beyond athletic achievements. Whether you're a die-hard fan or new to the world of basketball, this episode offers valuable insights into the life of one of the league's most dynamic players.

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Transcript

[Dwight Howard]

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[Unknown Host]

You against Mike. Who wins? It's a tough one.

[Dwight Howard]

That is a very tough one.

[Unknown Host]

As a teammate, who did you prefer as a teammate, Lebron or Cole?

[Dwight Howard]

Man, he is a character.

[Unknown Host]

Don't you think the guy that's the face of the league has the authority to call the Lakers and say, guys, don't get rid of him. Don't get rid of him. I mean, you have to have these conversations together.

[Dwight Howard]

It's like water under the bridge. Like, why even ask him?

[Unknown Host]

So the elbow was intentional. It wasn't accidental.

[Dwight Howard]

When I say Kobe's the asshole, emotionally and mentally, I was fed up. And at the time, Nike said I didn't have a personality.

[Unknown Guest]

Things like that can cause somebody to mentally check out if somebody offers a contract.

[Unknown Host]

NBA, would you go back, Charles? It's gotta be one of the top 10 best personalities out there.

[Dwight Howard]

Shaq. Look at you, Shaq.

[Unknown Host]

Now this guy's either straight, he's gay, he's bisexual, he's fooling everybody. You're not gay at all. Ain't no party like a diddy party. Dwight, stop it. 30 seconds. Did you ever think you were made.

[Dwight Howard]

Again.

[Unknown Host]

Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever saw.

[Unknown Guest]

It's right here.

[Unknown Host]

You are a one of one.

[Dwight Howard]

I think I've ever said this.

[Unknown Host]

All right, so for those of you that enjoy the sports interviews that we do, we got a special one in the house here. The one and only Dwight Howard. Three time defensive player of the year, number one draft pick, first round. The guy came in, he dominated the league. One of the most exciting players to watch. I think I remember when I would just tell him right now, body, human specimen. You would see this guy jumping out and doing what he was doing first. I think the youngest player ever to do 20. 20, right. 20 points, 20 rebounds. Just found that record for the most dunks ever in the career in the NBA. No one's dunked the game, dunked the ball more than Dwight Howard. Made a ton of money. I think you lived in a small house, small 35,000 square foot house. You know, it's just, you got, you got to be able to find everybody that's living in that place. Got 750 acres of land, animals, different things. Was on a reality TV show, what was it called? Special Forces back in the days with Mike Piazza, Scaramucci, bunch of different guys that were in it. And then for whatever reason wins the frickin championship with the Lakers. And I thought you played such an important role and then all of a sudden we get the news, why would you do this? The guy was such a good role player. Anyways, it's good to have you in the house here, man.

[Unknown Guest]

Thank you so much.

[Unknown Host]

How you doing?

[Unknown Guest]

I am doing such, I'm doing so amazing. I love it and I'm very grateful to be here. So thank you.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, man. Yes. So let's start off with that. Let's start as, as a die hard Laker fan. Okay. And you know, Lakers, if you're, if you're a Laker fan, you're a Yankees fan, you're a, you know, Patriots fan, you're a Steelers fan, you're kind of spoiled. It's either you win or you don't. Right? I mean that's like the standard Celtics is in the same category. You come on the first time, you come with Kobe and Nash, that doesn't work out. Okay, cool. You come the second time around and you're playing loose, you actually look like you're having fun. You're happy, you're like, hey, you come off the bench, I don't care. How do you need me? Put me. And they put you in. Boom. You're dominating playoff. You showed up in a, in a major way. You guys want to chip. I sincerely as a fan, thought they're going to sign him for probably two or three years. He's going to stay here and play this role. You're going to. It's tough to find guys like you in the league. You just can't find them. And then all of a sudden, boom, nothing happens.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, that's what I felt. I was like, oh man. I come in and do my job. I'm securing two more years. That's all I was thinking about.

[Unknown Host]

That's what I thought about.

[Unknown Guest]

I was like, man, if I can secure Two more years, that's it.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't need to go nowhere else.

[Unknown Guest]

I can get me a small little crib in LA.

[Unknown Host]

I already have a small little crib. 35,000 scriptures.

[Dwight Howard]

I have that at home. So I would sound on these a.

[Unknown Host]

A big space.

[Dwight Howard]

I just have something, you know, nice for me and my son and my daughter while we're there for the games and stuff like that. But then I can go back home, so it's fine. But then when I never got the. The deal, you know, I think it. It still hurts me a little bit to this day.

[Unknown Host]

So, you know, the stories we hear right from the outside, we're not on the inside, so we don't know anybody in the Lakers organization, bus, or any of these guys. The story is, you know, LeBron fired a lot of coaches, and LeBron will say, I've never done anything to get coaches fired. Right? A lot of coaches get fired because of LeBron. Fine. You hear great players have that reputation and they go through it. I think Jordan even have it. Had it with Duck Collins back in the days, if you remember when he's like, just shut up and give him the money. What is it? Just, just give him the ball, right? Remember when Doug Collins said that?

[Unknown Guest]

So get out of his way.

[Unknown Host]

Get out of his way. Give him the fucking ball. So what, what, what call did you, what play did you call? I just told everybody, you know, get the F out of the ISO.

[Dwight Howard]

Get out of the way.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, so it's like, ah, it's kind of cool, but do you win a championship? Phil comes, the rest is history. How much of this was LeBron calling the shots to move on, and how much of it you think it was management?

[Dwight Howard]

This one is so weird to know because I, I don't know if it could be management because I'm like, they're the ones who first bought me in. But then I'm like, it can't be LeBron because this is something that he wants to win, so he's going to get the best available pieces. So I'm like, these were the best available pieces. So I really don't truly understand why none of us really came back the next year, especially those core guys who really, I think, got us over the top. You know, you got the Rondos, the Avery Bradleys, who didn't even play in the finals are in the championship run in the, in the bubble. But he was so significant all year. Avery Bradley and his defense. She was sick that, you know, bringing somebody like that from Celtics.

[Unknown Host]

Did he come from the Celtics.

[Dwight Howard]

Celtics.

[Unknown Host]

And he was a beast defender.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

So, but why do I mean, you have to have these conversations together to say Rondo to me? Was Rondo a good locker room guy?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. All of us are like, just think about this. How can you say somebody is a cancer in the locker room? You want to call Draymond a cancer if he's mad that they lose and he goes off?

[Unknown Host]

Kerr would never call him that.

[Dwight Howard]

You know what I'm saying? So, you know, sometimes passion might look like ego to people on the outside when they see, like, a DeMarcus in the locker room, mad at his teammates or something, or, you know, say, hey, y' all gotta step it up. You know, they might take that as this is his ego, but not saying it, like, maybe this is only. This is the only way he knows how to show his passion. I'm only using him as an example. I can use myself as well. You know, there's been times where I've been labeled as a locker room cancer because of my passion. You know, I'm not gonna let nobody just run over me, but at the same time, I'm gonna speak, you know, my mind. You know, and a lot of times in, you know, the sports world, when you do speak your mind, you go out of what, you know, the team may want, or you can get penalized for it.

[Unknown Host]

You. You play with Kobe, and you played with LeBron, and you played with both of them at their peak, right? Can I say that? Yeah. I think you played with both. Right. And Olympics, so. And you were in 08 Olympics. That's right. So the one where Kobe ran through Pau Gasol.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes, I was there.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, so question becomes, you know.

[Unknown Guest]

The.

[Unknown Host]

The.

[Unknown Guest]

The.

[Unknown Host]

The story with the Lakers, when you play with LeBron locker room, are you getting the vibe where it's like, dude, this guy's happy for me to be here? We're meshing. Rondo's mission, everyone's mission. If the Lakers win, don't you think the guy that's the face of the league has the authority to call the Lakers and say, guys, don't get rid of him. Don't get rid of him.

[Unknown Guest]

Don't get rid of him?

[Dwight Howard]

I'm pretty sure he does, and I'm pretty sure he did. You know, we'll never know if it was something personal or it was just, you know, they're moving in a different direction. I don't think we'll ever really get a true and honest answer.

[Unknown Host]

Have you ever asked LeBron directly, have you ever had a Chance.

[Dwight Howard]

I haven't asked him. That's a good one to ask, but it's like, at this point, it's like water under the bridge. Like, why even ask him? You know, it would have been.

[Unknown Host]

It would have been.

[Dwight Howard]

By the way, he would have had a chance.

[Unknown Host]

How many does he have right now? He's got four. Right. So he wins two more. That's six, Michael, six, Colby, five, Magic, five. That's like a good argument, you know, it's a good argument to ask because that would have put him in a completely different situation.

[Dwight Howard]

That is true. But then again, I think that we have had so many great players and greatness come through this league, we start to compare by using rings and, you know, I think it take away from a lot of the greatness that a lot of these players had because they wasn't as fortunate enough to win championships like Jordan or, you know, LeBron did and have a brand pushed them to a whole nother level. So Larry Bird, or, let's say Clyde Drexler, even Scotty Pippen, these guys didn't have the engine of Nike behind them. Or, you know, how Steph Curry has Under Armour and stuff like that. So when you don't have that boost behind you, sometimes you don't. You may not get the credit from the world because the eyes are not on you as much as it would be if you were with these companies.

[Unknown Host]

Who were you with? Who was your.

[Dwight Howard]

I was with Adidas.

[Unknown Host]

You were Adidas. Is there in the league a certain. Are people frowned upon? If you're with Adidas vs Under Armour vs Nike, like, is there clicks or not really? The shoes, Nobody gives a shit.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't think there's any clicks. But, you know, usually, like, the Nike players have been with Nike since they've been young. You know what I'm saying? So it's like I was with Adidas when I was in high school, so I ended up signing with Adidas.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, so you had Adidas from high school?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, my AU team was sponsored by Adidas. And that's how usually guys stick with their. Whoever they were with, you know, in high school and coming up. That's what I'm saying. They got an engine behind them. So.

[Unknown Host]

Did you ever meet, like. Have you ever seen a movie, Air?

[Dwight Howard]

Is that with how they explain the whole Nike Jordan situation just a little bit? I don't know.

[Unknown Host]

You don't watch the whole thing? Dude, you would love it. It's a S movie. It breaks down the dynamics so well. It's so. I Watched it. There's only three movies I watched three times in the first week. This is one of them.

[Dwight Howard]

Wow.

[Unknown Host]

Three times in the first week.

[Unknown Guest]

You took our entire company.

[Unknown Host]

I took. I took not only my insurance company, I took these guys myself. Three times in the first week. It's that sick of a movie. But there's a scene where Matt Damon is playing Sonny and he's telling Michael Jordan's mother on what to ask from Converse, what to ask from Adidas. Adidas. And then before you do anything, come with us. Nike. When you were going through your shoe deals, was there any stories that you met with Nike, you met with everybody else, or was straight up, you just went to Adidas, didn't meet with anybody else.

[Dwight Howard]

My dad was talking to Nike with my agent. And at the time, Nike said I didn't have a personality, which was crazy. And I think you didn't say that. That's why I ended up going with Adidas.

[Unknown Host]

Nike literally told your dad and your agent, you don't have a personality.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, that's what it was.

[Unknown Guest]

This was at 18 years old, though.

[Dwight Howard]

This is when I. Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Before coming out of high school.

[Unknown Host]

And they made no offers.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't even think they made an offer at that point.

[Unknown Host]

Later on. Did they ever try to poach you from Adidas or No?

[Dwight Howard]

No.

[Unknown Host]

Anybody else?

[Dwight Howard]

I did. I had another shoe company that I was with. It was called Peak. It's a Chinese shoe company. And they actually owe me a lot of money, but it's a Chinese company, so, like, you can't really. Like, if something happens in the States and you have to try to fight it in China, you're not. Good luck.

[Unknown Host]

Did you ever play out there or no. Did you ever play in China?

[Dwight Howard]

I played in Taiwan.

[Unknown Host]

How was that?

[Dwight Howard]

It was amazing. I stayed there for eight months and played in Taiwan. By the time I left Taiwan, we were talking about making my own basketball league. And now I have a league that plays in Taiwan, plays in Thailand, Macau, Hong Kong, couple places in Philippines, and they have a team in China as well. And so they travel to these different parts. We call it the Asian tournament. And I was just so happy that I got a chance to play in Taiwan. It really was very beneficial to my health.

[Unknown Host]

Health?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. Mental health.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, mental health.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

The way they treated you, like, gratitude, excitement, enthusiasm, or that.

[Dwight Howard]

That was a big part of it. But I would just say, like, playing in the NBA for a very long time can, you know, you could get mentally. It could be mentally ill for you sometimes. You could kind of Feel real, you know, depressed or sad about some things sometimes. Because in the NBA you're, it's, it's a high, it's a highly energetic sport. You spend a lot of energy, a lot of time, you're moving from city to city. Everything is a whirlwind, you know. So a lot of times when players get out of that whirlwind or that fast paced life and everything starts to slow down, you know, a lot of things look and feel and seem different. You know, a lot of guys go through problems and issues during those stages. And you know, a lot of players in different sports as well, three to five years after they're done, some of them, you know, have going bankrupt. They don't know what to do when they're finished playing. So for my time in Taiwan, it was like, it's like Red Bull, you know, they gave me so much energy, you know, I feel so much peace, you know, being in the city, you know, just. Just living life and learning so much about the culture, you know, which was amazing. I was like, man, I want my kids to come over here. This is such a great place. So I ended up getting my gold card over there for business. So my kids can come now. Wow. Mom and dad, family can come at any time and start business over there. How often are you like that in Taiwan? Well, at that point I was going every summer. And when I was 18, all the way up until about, I would say 34, 35, I would go to Asia and do a tour every summer.

[Unknown Guest]

So that's why China was good for your mental health is what?

[Unknown Host]

No, Taiwan.

[Unknown Guest]

Sorry, Taiwan. My apologies. Mental health just for a second, you know. Ricky Rubio, I believe, retired from the NBA due to focusing on his mental health. We've seen what's happened with Delonte West.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Guest]

If you ever played with this guy, I think there was another guy, got drafted by the NBA. What was his name? Tyrell Terry. Before he even picked up the basketball. Retired due to mental health. There's a lot of, I guess, impression that athletes, especially on the court, oh, you could say whatever you want, talk about your mom. Even LeBron has had issues. Talk about mental health in terms of playing on the court, off the court. How you deal with that?

[Dwight Howard]

Well.

[Unknown Guest]

Cause there's so much that goes into the game, you know, and now because the game is oversaturated with talent, with money, politics and all that, you know, the passion and the true joy of the game is being lost and taken away. So a lot of the mental problems that you see A lot of guys may be depressed. Cause they play this game for one reason, and they might get on the court or with a team, and they might not get a chance to play. They might have to sit on the bench for a whole season. Things like that can cause somebody to mentally check out, can cause somebody to mentally not want to be available. Emotionally. You're, you know, off. All these things can happen. So I know for myself, I just had to try to find a way to mentally stay present. Because when you allow those moments to creep in, that's when you can get depressed and start thinking about, man, this is. This is a crazy life. I don't know who I can trust. I don't know who I can talk to. I don't know this person is in it for the right reason. All these different things have happened to, I would say, all of us players. Because when we played this game, when we started to play the game, it was just really all about the love of the game. But then as we got older, we started to play in these different leagues and start playing for money and things like that. Things like that. Then that's when the whole politics and everything comes in, and it kind of takes away from the joy.

[Unknown Host]

What was when. When you. When you were coming up, like, everybody. You would get certain criticism, right? As players, everybody gets it, right? What. What criticism did you get that at this point, you're like, I think that was unfair. I think this was fair. The criticism. Like, for example, they would say Kobe was too hard, right? And he was too tough on his teammates. And he would talk about leadership. I was like, oh, he was just the driver. He was this. He was that. Like, what is that? One player who said my locker was literally right next to his locker room.

[Dwight Howard]

What was it?

[Unknown Host]

Swoosh. Swoosh. Parker is like. He's like, look, I mean, for one year, he says, you don't realize. It's literally right next to him. The guy would never talk to me, never asked me about my family, nothing. One time. Can you pull up this clip?

[Dwight Howard]

I understand that I had a moment with Kobe where it was like we were in the locker room on the plane together. During the Olympic. Not the Olympics, but during the season, actually the year I was playing with the Lakers and Kobe, where we were on the plane together, me and his family didn't really speak. Where our locker room was next to each other. I'm not the Olympics, but the All Star Game, when we played on the same team, he didn't speak. It's like he didn't want to be next to me at that time. So it was, it was a little, you know, weird, you know, because I'm like, dang, this Kobe, my teammate, I looked up to him. I came out of high school, he came out of high school. He's a lot older than me. But then again, you know, it could have been something like, hey, I'm trying to see where his head at, you know, And I never know. I'm a young guy at the time. I'm thinking, like, why would my teammate not talk to me? Like, what did I do that was so bad? Like, can we talk it out? You know what I'm saying? But some people use different strategies to win. And maybe that was his.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, this is the clip. Rob, if you can play this, this is swish Parker. It was an overrated experience.

[Dwight Howard]

I dealt with this man for two seasons and my locker was here. His locker was here. I watched this man put on his shoes every day for work.

[Unknown Host]

The man never spoke to me.

[Dwight Howard]

I wasn't the 12 man on the bench. I wasn't the call up from the G league. I started with this man.

[Unknown Host]

I was his co worker. Like we shared a cubicle side by side. How do you do that for two.

[Dwight Howard]

Seasons and never hold the conversation? Never. What's up? Good morning.

[Unknown Host]

Do you need anything? You know, how's the family? Nothing. I shared a story about how I did try to talk to him, you know, said, did you catch.

[Dwight Howard]

Happen to catch the football game last night? And he looked at me, honestly looked.

[Unknown Host]

At me and said, you can't talk to me. You need more accolades under your belt before you come talk to me. It was dead serious.

[Dwight Howard]

My time was.

[Unknown Host]

So now that's bush Parker, you're Dwight Howard. You know, there's. And I don't say anything about him. He was fun to watch. He was, he was a action swoosh, was nice to watch, played. He was tough. But your Dwight Howard, three time defensive you went to the finals with. Who were your teammates? You had. Who was your point guard? Your point guard was excited. Yeah, he was fun to watch. What was his nickname? He had a mighty mighty mouse. Yeah. And you had Rashard Lewis who got a big contract. He was, he was really nice. He was really nice. But I mean, you were, you kind of like the face of the league for, for a good three, four seasons. You were, you know, one of those guys that, you know, people looked at and said, something's going to happen with this guy. So it's different if he's like that to Him. But you're coming like, dude, I've made money already, right? When you're Kobe's teammate, you've already made a couple hundred million dollars. You've already been, you know, to the championship. You've had that. How different was he with you versus how he was with him?

[Dwight Howard]

I don't see. I think that when I came in, you know, he wanted to do the bad cop, good cop, you know, routine. And the season kind of started off kind of bad. We didn't have the type of run that we thought we was gonna be in the beginning and stuff like that. So a lot of injuries.

[Unknown Host]

Nash was out for us. Everybody, yeah, everybody was injured. That was a. It was a pretty nasty season.

[Dwight Howard]

It was. And, you know, so I think he went into like, aw, fuck it. I'm finna go out here and try to score and do what I gotta do, because I'm not finna let my team, you know, this is my team down. And I understand that. Looking back on it, I think that we didn't give each other a chance. I think that I Kind of. The time where I left, I'm like, man, you know, Kobe really don't want me here. You know what I'm saying? I should go somewhere where I want it. You know, I remember that, and that's how I felt at the time, you know, like, man, this dude don't seem like he really want me here, you know, because he's not helping me get better or. But maybe he's probably, like, if he want it, then he's going to approach it this way, you know what I'm saying? But as a young player, you don't know how to approach certain things. I'm only going by what I've done my whole life to get me to this point, which is if I'm not playing good or if I'm not where I want to be, I'm going to go get in the gym and continue to get better. And the year we went to the finals, before I played with the Lakers, I remember calling him and asking him, like, what do I need to work on to get better? And we had a good conversation.

[Unknown Guest]

Literally.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And this is when you're 18, 19 years old.

[Dwight Howard]

This was after we played them in the finals. So I had a conversation.

[Unknown Guest]

2009, right? As you beat LeBron?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. I asked him what I need to do, and he said, work on, like, free throw line jump shots in mid range. So I started shooting and making a thousand shots a day. That was my thing. Because he was like, hey, I take and make a thousand shots every day. So I was like, okay, well, I'm finna add that into my workout. So I started doing a thousand shots a day. The next year, I was second in MVP voter behind Derrick Rose.

[Unknown Host]

What year is this?

[Dwight Howard]

This was 2010.

[Unknown Host]

So you were right behind Rose.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, when Rose won it, I was. I was second in voting that year. And I just remember playing with Kobe, like, I wanted to learn so much from him, but I think I was expecting him to be like, hey, come over here, I'm going to show you this. And it should have been. It could have been me being like, hey, let me go to him. You know what I'm saying? It kind of make that connection. So for me, I was like, I'm gonna go to Chuck Person. He was our. One of our big man coaches back then.

[Unknown Host]

So I was like, person Pacers, Chuck Person. But he wasn't a big man. He was a small forward, though. Do you.

[Dwight Howard]

He. He was awesome. He could really shoot the ball. He.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, he was a three point shooter.

[Dwight Howard]

So that year, actually the second half of the season, I don't know if people remember on the second half of the season average, we were. We had. Our record was a lot better in the second half of that season with the Lakers due to me working with Chuck almost every single day after. You know, I kind of recovered from that year. I had tore my labrum in my shoulder. I don't even think people understand how I was playing almost the whole season with a torn labrum. Torn. Most people have surgeries when they have a labrum tear. I continued to play. I think I missed like six games that season. Every time I went up to go dunk the ball and somebody just slapped my arm like that. It felt like somebody shot me with a shotgun in my arm.

[Unknown Guest]

Just.

[Unknown Host]

Who knew that? Who knew that the team. Did the league know that, that it was going on?

[Dwight Howard]

The league knew it was torn. You know, so this was public?

[Unknown Host]

This was announced.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, this was. You know, I just kept playing through it and I remember the media going crazy. Did you talk to Kobe about your shoulder? And I'm like, why do I have to talk to my teammate about the status of my injury? Like, I need to talk to the doctor. So I let them know I can't play. Like, no, you gotta tell him. He got. I'm like, that's not cool. So I think that they was putting so much animosity between us or, you know, that when I left and we had that first game against each Other with the rockets. You know, you could see us drawing that. He's like, is that the elbow one?

[Unknown Host]

That's the.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah. And I feel like, can you play that clip?

[Unknown Host]

This one right here?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah. I feel like he was saying that because mentally he felt like I allowed all the BS to get in my head. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink. Then straight to the gym, pre K, pickup back home to meal prep.

[Unknown Guest]

Time for my fire station shift.

[Dwight Howard]

One more Celsius. Gotta keep the lights on when the three alarm hits.

[Unknown Guest]

I'm ready.

[Dwight Howard]

Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at.

[Unknown Guest]

Your local retailer or locate [e-mail].

[Unknown Host]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state. What's he saying here?

[Dwight Howard]

He was saying, he said driving. I was like, you know me, man. I know you. And so look at the score. Look at the score. So I, I, I feel like Kobe's.

[Unknown Host]

Down 25 in that game.

[Dwight Howard]

We're kicking they ass. And it like, this player right here is like, why is he doing this? And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna elbow you. Get off me.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, so the elbow was intentional. It wasn't accidental.

[Dwight Howard]

It was intentional. Cause first of all, we're winning by.

[Unknown Guest]

Like, I think you're up 25.

[Dwight Howard]

We're up 25. It's the fourth quarter. I'm getting a rebound. It's like, why are you pressuring me full court for after rebound? And so I got one elbow. Then he comes back. So I throw another one just to, like, get him off. And then we get into it. And I, I want to say he was doing that to say, like, I got you again. I got you out of your game.

[Unknown Host]

You're soft observation. So for me, like, it's all about, you know, watching how people handle rooms. Okay? And I'm watching dynamics because from the outside, you hear stuff, and then you're in the locker room. You're in the locker room. So you're in the locker room. Who's the coach? Phil is the who? Phil Jackson's the coach.

[Dwight Howard]

I wish he was supposed to come and coach that year. We could talk about that he was supposed to come and coach and he.

[Unknown Host]

Wanted to do the 41 only home games and didn't want to go on the road. Is that the time?

[Dwight Howard]

Well, see what happened was he had, he had. He was about to have back surgery. He wasn't going to be able to travel and so he wanted to make sure that this doctor was going to be okay with him coming back to coach. We had just literally talked right before they made the decision to bring in Frank Vogel.

[Unknown Guest]

Wasn't even.

[Dwight Howard]

No, it wasn't Frank Vogel. It was Mike d' Antoni. It was Mike d' Antoni. I literally was just talking to Phil. The first time I was talking to Phil and he's like, Dwight, I really want to coach you.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, I remember because he said we're going to average 140 points game a.

[Dwight Howard]

Night and we didn't need to do that.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, we didn't need to do that. I remember that.

[Dwight Howard]

All we needed to do is beat people up. We got the greatest closer. You got the two biggest big men in the paint, Pau Gasol and myself. Who's going to stop us? Like, but we tried to play a fast paced game with older players. I'm the youngest one and I just had back surgery and I just had a torn labrum. So why not slow the game down and play the pace that we need? We don't have to. Steve Nash doesn't have back surgery. He just had back surgery.

[Unknown Host]

Coaches, but this the part dynamics. My interest is on the inside. So how many coaches coach you like? If you put the big coaches. You had Dan, Tony, who else coached you?

[Dwight Howard]

St. Van Gundi, Van Gundy, Orlando. Why can't I forget all my coaches right now? What's the black guy?

[Unknown Host]

What's the.

[Unknown Guest]

It sounds like he really made an impact on you.

[Dwight Howard]

You did. I can't take him. Mike Brown, I'm so sorry. I know your coaches.

[Unknown Guest]

Don't worry about it.

[Unknown Host]

You got this.

[Dwight Howard]

Some of my coaches. Oh my God. Brian Hill.

[Unknown Host]

When you're watching, when you guys are in a place where there's a of lot, lot of conflict. Okay. You don't hear a lot about Dantoni. What was Dantoni's style of dealing with Kobe? Like, would he challenge him or. He left Kobe alone.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, he would most likely leave him alone. He would leave him alone.

[Unknown Host]

He wouldn't bother him.

[Dwight Howard]

He wouldn't say too much to him. Like, I mean he was more so chill. But I feel like with Phil, our offense would have been in a better place. The triangle offense would have suited us better because you can keep the one side clear of Kobe wanted to do his thing and then that triangle that's going on on the other side of the court or whatever it may be, I felt like that would have been something. Half court offense for us would have been crucial. Teams wouldn't have been able to stop us in the half court. So by us trying to play the fast paced game that wasn't us. And then I felt like I was at a place in my career where I needed to slow it down and get in the triangle so I can understand offense and how to move offensively. A lot of times, big man, they mature slower in the league because the game takes longer to slow down to them. And I was fortunate enough to play in different eras. So when I first came in, it was back to the basket big. The lane was a lot more packed and stuff like that. Boxes and elbows on defense. And then it started to spread out, you know, year after year then to now was like threes and half court. But, you know, so back then, a big needed time. Hakeem Elijah, 1. They was getting in their primes, in their 30s, their late 30s, you know what I'm saying? That's when they're in their primes. Cause they're now the game is slowed down so they can understand and see it more. So I just felt like with a coach like Dantoni, the pick and roll and stuff was great for my Orlando time. So I think that's why they got Dantoni. But I felt for me to take that step to the next level, it was time for Phil.

[Unknown Host]

What was the difference? Locker room, Kobe locker room, LeBron locker room. You're in a locker room game zone. You win, you lose, you had a sick game. You know, you showed up. What is the vibe in our locker room with Kobe versus LeBron? Is Kobe, game's over. Boom. He's going. Him is LeBron. Hey, man, good job. Done. What's it about?

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, they both go, we win. And they both live. They both live in the locker room, man, it's been so long with Kobe. That year was such an up and down year. We had our wins, we was happy. But when we lost, we was pretty pissed. LeBron, man, he is a character. He is so funny. So after the games, you know, he's gonna. His locker room is crazy. His locker room looks like your what? His backdrop, the whole thing. He got everything. Got all the shoes. He got like two lockers shoes lined up, all the stuff. He got his special do rags Everything, you know, so it's. It's like the president's locker room. It's pretty nice.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. So he had the biggest locker room you saw out of all the players you played against.

[Dwight Howard]

I mean, well, he just got two lockers. Most Everybody get day one little spot. But, I mean, it's LeBron. Two lockers.

[Unknown Guest]

It would seem like. I don't know if you could find this video of LeBron locker room, Miami Heat. I mean, they did a whole dance. It would seem to me that Kobe is way more serious than LeBron. I even heard you say something to.

[Dwight Howard]

The effect of Kobe's kind of an. Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Kind of wants to be liked when.

[Dwight Howard]

I say Kobe's the thing. Yeah, he. I've seen him, like, go off on, you know, autograph seekers, you know, going. Yeah, going crazy. Because this lady's like, you guys out here this late, you know, asking for autographs. So, man, he. Yeah, I could. I've seen that side of him. But at the same time, you know, I've always heard that you have to be a certain type of way to make it in life, you know? So I don't feel like he's that way with everybody. I feel like that when it's time to be that person, then he's gonna be that person. Cause he's trying to get to his goal, whatever his goal is, and he's not gonna let nobody stop him.

[Unknown Host]

Who was between the two? Somebody like a favorite teammate. I'm not even going to. You know, I'll ask you the other question next, but as a teammate, who did you prefer as a teammate, LeBron or Kobe? It's a tough one.

[Dwight Howard]

That is a very tough one. I just feel like me and Kobe didn't give each other time to really mesh. And we was in a place where emotionally and mentally, I was fed up with the things that had happened in Orlando that a lot of people don't know about. And I'm coming into this new situation, like, man, I want to turn it all around. I'm in a new city, new place. I'm playing with one of the greatest players ever. But I just came off back surgery. I'm not even supposed to be playing this whole year. I was supposed to sit out the whole season when I came to the Lakers, but I came back in four months. I was supposed to sit out a whole year from my back surgery. Took out that much of my herniated disc, the largest that they ever taken out of somebody's back. So I was supposed to miss significant time. Came Back early, then tore my labrum, continued to play, and we made it to the playoffs. That was the last time the Lakers had made it to the playoffs until I came back and we went to the championship.

[Unknown Guest]

From 2013 to 2020, there was no playoffs for the Lakers.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I remember that. But that's when he was averaging 35. Four. That's when he had the streak of whatever, eight or nine games of 40. But stay on this. So teammate, Kobe, LeBron.

[Dwight Howard]

Teammate. I'm going to go with LeBron. I had my championship with him. We had our longest run together. So I got to pick LeBron over Kobe.

[Unknown Host]

But if you're an owner and you're drafting somebody and you have your number one draft pick, who are you picking between the two to win?

[Dwight Howard]

To win? Knowing what I know now.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, we. Well, you gotta go with LeBron.

[Unknown Host]

So you still picking LeBron over Kobe?

[Dwight Howard]

I mean, knowing what we know. All right, so if you're talking about longevity, Longevity. If you're talking about just overall, not skill, like how people look at skill, I'm talking about everything that encompasses basketball. Look what LeBron has done. Kobe has. He has. He has the most. He's turned himself into the most skilled, but I don't think that he had the most talent. I think LeBron was so talented that he could play one through five. He could do football, he could do all these different things. I felt like Kobe mastered his skill on the court of basketball. He mastered bank shots. He mastered the pump fake, pump fake, turnaround shoot. He mastered the bump phase. He mastered all the moves that Jordan did to the three. He mastered shooting with his left hand. You know, I think that when you look at LeBron, he just mastered everything that come with basketball off the court. You know, he's figured out how to manage that whole side which most athletes, if you. You can see, they don't have the.

[Unknown Host]

Proper.

[Dwight Howard]

Resources or the proper team to do what he's done. He's. His longevity just stands out to everybody.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, so here's. Here's one for you. So now that you got LeBron over Kobe, do you have LeBron over Mike?

[Dwight Howard]

No, you can't have him over Mike.

[Unknown Host]

Why. Why Is that longevity? LeBron was longer than Mike, bigger than Mike, faster. He can play five positions. Michael couldn't play five positions. Michael was really three positions, right?

[Dwight Howard]

Why do I have LeBron?

[Unknown Guest]

Why do I have Michael?

[Dwight Howard]

LeBron?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

I felt like he set the bar for everyone. So he was the pioneer of it, so I gotta have him.

[Unknown Host]

So you draft pick you're picking Michael over LeBron?

[Dwight Howard]

I'm picking Michael Jordan.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Dwight Howard]

I want to be like, that's a.

[Unknown Host]

Question for both of you. I got a question for both of you. Okay. It's actually very interesting because to me, I also like a player that stays with a team like Dirk State. Right. Colt stayed. Right. You know, you had a few guys that stayed with the organization for longevity wise. I don't know how many more players like that I can think about, but it's a few. D. Wade. Yeah. With my. He ended up with Chicago, but he played. So change it up. Let's just say that your Lakers had a shitty year and they have number one draft pick. They pick LeBron. You think LeBron would have ever gone to Cleveland or anywhere else or you think LeBron would have stayed in LA?

[Dwight Howard]

He would have stayed in LA.

[Unknown Host]

You think he wouldn't have gone to Cleveland to win one for them? Like, you think he would have still stayed in la?

[Dwight Howard]

Well, if he never started with Cleveland.

[Unknown Host]

He was number one draft pick. LA picks him up. They had a horrible year. Couple trades, they get back in the boom. LeBron going to LA.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't believe he would leave LA. You don't think he's in LA?

[Unknown Host]

That's an interesting question to think about.

[Dwight Howard]

Not if you start with LA. I mean, if he starts with LA and he's LeBron James, the number one pick, he's coming in. Ask everyone, know who he is. Now, I don't see what would be the benefit of going somewhere else. Because this is the biggest team in the biggest. This is a mark as marketing. They're the biggest team in the NBA and the biggest fan base worldwide and nationally. So why would he want to leave and go somewhere else at that time?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, but the only thing is like, how much did it mean to him to go to Cleveland and when you think he would have stayed 20 years with LA.

[Unknown Guest]

I think that there's a major part of LeBron. And look, I'm a lifelong Miami Heat fan. Like, I know everything there is about the Miami Heat. That was my team. When you guys beat them in the bubble, I mean, you remember I was, I mean, I was living in Dallas all the time, screaming and hollering, rooting for my guys out there. Jimmy was fighting Jimmy Butler, Jimmy Buckey.

[Unknown Host]

Gotta give him credit though, that guy's a fighter.

[Unknown Guest]

But I think there's a part of two parts. I think there's a part of LeBron that no matter what, he was going to try to get back to Cleveland and Win something. Like when he left, he. He left Cleveland, in my opinion, because they just couldn't assemble the pieces. He went to the Heat, you know, not one, not two, not three, four, five. He put together the super team, the heels with Wade and Bosch, and. And then soon as he won, I think he won two out of four championships, right back to Cleveland. I think he went 1 and 2 against Golden State.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

So I think he did that and he did that. But they're also. This is my opinion again, I think if you ask just any casual fan, they would have, in specific order, MJ, LeBron, Kobe. And I think that's undeniable. But there is a part of. Of. Of Kobe that's almost romanticized because, I mean, tragically died too soon, horribly. And because he stayed with the Lakers so long, he became this fan favorite like, he's not going anywhere. We all love Kobe, but let's not forget Shaq was the man in 2000, 2001, 2002. Like, it wasn't even a question. I think Shaq won all the MVP.

[Unknown Host]

He did.

[Unknown Guest]

So LeBron put everything on his back, took Cleveland to the final, took the Heat to the final, took the Cleveland back.

[Unknown Host]

What's your point? What point are you making?

[Unknown Guest]

My point is this. LeBron, his legacy is a little bit more tarnished because he's sort of seen as like a ring chaser and, you know, kind of running around. Whereas Kobe is romanticized for saying, we.

[Unknown Host]

Still haven't answered my question, but no breakdown. Tell me, is he gonna stay?

[Unknown Guest]

He would have not stayed. He would have cleave enough.

[Unknown Host]

I think so as well. So here's my question for you.

[Unknown Guest]

But you're. You're also a Kobe guy, not a LeBron.

[Unknown Host]

But no, Toby, I'm a guy. No, I look. I like. Okay, I'm looking at his draft year, right? Okafor. Okafor is number two. Gordon, your first. Gordon three. He goes Chicago. Sean Livingston, by the way, if he doesn't get injured, that guy was a very interesting player, right? Very clean. Golden State. He. Yeah, I. I don't think I ever saw him miss the, you know, the small shoot. It was like the way he was. Devin Harris, Josh Childress, Lua Dang. He came to the Lakers. He had a $61 million contract. The Lakers were stuck with. I'll never forget that. AI Eagle, Dua Jackson, Robert Swift. Chris Humphrey's your boy. You know, you were at his wedding, so. And you're going down the list here, right? But imagine, okay, you get picked because you Went to Orlando, right? Rich, DeVos, that whole organization. But say you go to the Lakers, what do you do? Do you stay? You don't know what happens. Would you. Would you be with them for a while or would you still be like, nah, I kind of want to go see what Atlanta's like, you know, I kind of want to go to see what this is like. What would you do?

[Dwight Howard]

I was drafted from the Lakers.

[Unknown Host]

Lakers number one draft pick. You're there.

[Dwight Howard]

I gotta stay.

[Unknown Host]

You gotta stay. So that's how you process.

[Dwight Howard]

I gotta stay. I'm with the most story franchise. I can't take away. I don't want people from Orlando saying, oh, but you left us. No, this is different because this is not year one leaving Orlando. This is year nine. I've already been in Orlando for eight years when I left, you know what I'm saying? So. And I think they kind of made it look like I was going at the fans or I wanted to leave because of the city and stuff like that. And why would I leave a team because of the city? It makes no sense.

[Unknown Host]

So you would have stayed in la?

[Dwight Howard]

Would. I stayed in la. I wanted to play with, not play, but be coached by Phil. I thought that would have been big for my development.

[Unknown Host]

Why though? Just purely for your development?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. Because I grew up in a era of basketball where everything was quick. 1, 2 dribbles, get to the basket. 1 dribble, finish, 2 dribbles, finish, 3 dribbles, max post ups, pick get seals and stuff like that. In this offense with Phil, I would be forced to do more fundamentally sound things. Catch it at the top of the key, get to the basket, make a move. He was gonna.

[Unknown Host]

It would have been interesting seeing how you would have done. He would have used it in triangle.

[Dwight Howard]

Offense to get me easier shots, to get Kobe easier shots to save our legs and our bodies. So when we play later on in the season, will still have the same bounce, the same.

[Unknown Host]

Do you think triangle offense was. Would work with big centers? I guess he would because he had Shaq. Right?

[Dwight Howard]

So we played it in high school. I played the triangle in high school.

[Unknown Host]

Who was your coach?

[Dwight Howard]

My coach was Courtney Brooks.

[Unknown Host]

Was he ever under Tech's winner or how did he pick up triangle offense?

[Dwight Howard]

We just got it because my goal was to go to the NBA. And I remember my 11th grade year, we watched Shaq destroyed the Philadelphia 76ers and Dikembe Mutombo. Rest in peace, Dikembe. But we watched. I watched at this camp. I was in this leadership camp. Shaq elbow Matt Geiger and Dikembe Mutombo in the chest and dunk on them every play. And so after watching that, my coach was like, we need to run triangle. I got to get you ready for the league.

[Unknown Host]

Triangle offense.

[Dwight Howard]

We was doing the triangle offense in high school.

[Unknown Host]

That's not an easy for a coach to pick. How long did it take for you guys to get it done? It must have taken months.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, it did. But once we got it, it was.

[Unknown Host]

It was easy because nobody. There is no point guard. Like, it's. You're always, always everybody. Yeah, it's always in a chain.

[Unknown Guest]

Dwight, stop it. You don't need any sort of offense when you're in high school. You're the best player in the country, they throw you the ball, you win the state championship, you know, you know, you know, run the offense.

[Unknown Host]

That's a very good point. By the way, what were your numbers in high school? Like, what kind of. What was your biggest game ever in high school?

[Dwight Howard]

Biggest game. Almost had 50. But my coach took me out because he didn't want me to disrespect the other team. He felt like it was getting too disrespectful. And I was upset about that because I wanted to have a 50 ball. Like, that's like, who does not want to have 50 points in a game?

[Unknown Host]

And I saw the fact that you had the offers from Duke. Who was it? Carolina? Who else was it?

[Dwight Howard]

Every school.

[Unknown Host]

Every school.

[Dwight Howard]

Every school. I was just telling my kids the other day, I had a tub about probably tub this big, this wide. I'm sorry, this long. Probably about this wide. Three or four tubs filled with letters from every school in America when I was in high school, trying to get me to come to their school. And I was like, man, there's no way I can choose a college.

[Unknown Host]

Were you ever tempted at all? Was ever, like, tempted at any college, meet with you and convince you to say, you know what? I. Dean Smith, I mean, 04. Who's 04?

[Dwight Howard]

That's Unc.

[Unknown Host]

Was anybody able to get you to at least think about it?

[Dwight Howard]

UNC got me to come to an official visit to unc. That was the only school I did an official visit with. Cause my goal was to go out to the NBA and be the first pick out of high school. That was one of the goals that I written down with my dad to be the first pick in the NBA draft. So I was like, I can't go to college if this is my goal. And I did a visit at UNC When I got there, I was like, this ain't really for me. I think if I go to college, I'm going to get in a lot of trouble.

[Unknown Guest]

In what regard?

[Dwight Howard]

Partying and not partying, but the ladies. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. But then, you know, I went to the NBA even more. So it was like. That don't even make sense. What are you talking about?

[Unknown Guest]

There was only a finite one amount.

[Unknown Host]

Of women, and I L. Today. Would you have gone to college? You were still going straight in. Would nil made a difference for you or not at all?

[Dwight Howard]

No, I probably would have. Still.

[Unknown Host]

You would have still come in. Okay, so you talking about Lakers. You say if I go to the Lakers, I'm going to stay with them for 20 years. You know, not 20 years, but I would be a lifer with them. So I remember. Okay, when I'm at PF Changs, me and this guy named Arash were debating between you and Bynum. I wrote about Bynum in my book, your Next Five Moves. He's in a book. Anyways. And I said. And I'm like. He says, no, I'm picking Bynum. I said, why? Bynum's got more finesse, soft touches. I said, dude, I said, I get it. I just don't know if Bynum loves the game, because to me, I think Bynum was a big guy. Coach saw. Picked him up. But when I watch him play the game, I don't know if he loves this game. Remember the issue he had two years when he went through. I don't know where it's at. Philadelphia.

[Dwight Howard]

I think he did, but see, I think that was a. That was him. I don't. I don't know him personally, but I want to say that probably was him acting out a little bit. Like, he played. He came from high school. He went and played one of the greatest players ever in basketball with Kobe.

[Unknown Host]

No, he's talking about Shaq. When he went up against.

[Dwight Howard]

I'm talking about Kobe. He played with one of the best players ever.

[Unknown Host]

I'm thinking you were saying the game where he went against Shaq and he was. He was. He didn't back down.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, but see, while playing with one of the greatest players ever, he's probably getting ridiculed and all these different things. So as at a young age, he's like, man, I watched this guy growing up. You know, I was a baby when Kobe was, you know, in the league. All these different things. Now he's playing with him. And now when his. His idol is probably yelling at him and going off on him. That probably put him in a place like, dang, like, I'm not. I'm not worthy, y' all. I'm not feeling this. Like, I came here to get better, but how can I grow if I'm number two or number three behind Kobe or you gotta think he's a young guy, he want to shine too. So that's pretty tough.

[Unknown Host]

But you, you know, you make a point because there, there are like, for example, Nick Saban comes into the NFL, doesn't do well, goes back to college, kills. And then you have guys that go from NBA college, they come back to the NBA or whatever, NFL, whatever pro you want to say. So what's the difference if I go to college? I'm dealing with greenies. So Nick Saban didn't have a problem with development and kind of taking young guys and building them up. It's not easy because you're more distracted, more, oh, my God, girls, you know, party and all. How do I get these guys to stay locked and come to the gym early, don't drink, don't smoke weed. It's a different mindset that you have, right? So it's almost. There's certain players, like, if I was a team owner and I got Kobe as my superstar dude, I'm going to be like, kobe, don't kill this new draft pick, bro. It's almost like I'm sitting there thinking to myself, what's the point of having a number one draft pick that comes here, that Kobe's going to kill him for two or three years, Let the guy go get his ass kicked, and then let me bring him here three, five, six, seven years later. Like, I think that's that versus and I think I put Michael in that as well. Michael had a hard time winning Kwame. The whole cat story with. Yeah. Kwame or even, you know, the. The Horace Grant and. And Scotty, because I think horse was an 87 draft, 88 draft. And as back to back, they come in and he almost pushed them out, but then they were able to get acclimated and then they won those three chips together. But to me, I think about that, the part I think about with you and I, I thought about this was the reason why you left. And please correct me if I say this because I followed you very closely. And I was one of the guys that was very excited when it came to the Lakers the first time around, not second time around, because first time around I thought it was going to.

[Unknown Guest]

Be like, yeah, dominance right There was a.

[Unknown Host]

There was. And I haven't seen this thing since it happened. So whatever year you came, you'll remember this. Where they're showing your dev already announced they've signed. You're in the office with cup check. I want to say the gm and he is pointing out all the rafters, right? I don't know if you remember this. And he says, look at the history of big men that we've had here. The great Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Shaq, and maybe one day you something like this. I don't even think you're going to find this. I don't think you're going to find this clip at all. But I'm certain you remember something like that that happened. And I watch your body language and I watch it. I'm like, I don't know if that put unnecessary pressure for you to play loose. I don't know if it made you nervous. I don't know if it made you. Because there's a difference. Playing in Orlando Magic, right? No one expects you to win. So if you win, you're God, but you come to Lakers, it's like, dude, no one expects you to lose. You better win or else get the hell out of our city type of a mindset. Did that at all shake you up a little bit when Mitch Kupchuk did that?

[Unknown Guest]

No, I loved it because I was like, man, this is why I play. Like, Wilt Chamber's my all time favorite player. Never got a chance to see him play, but he was my all time favorite player. I had this robot when I was young and used to always say Wilt Chamberlain, Will Chamberlain.

[Dwight Howard]

And I was like, man, who is with Chamber?

[Unknown Guest]

And he said he scored 100 points. And so the robot was like chat GPT back in the day. So that's cool. That's how I fell in love with Wilt Chamberlain being my favorite player. Because he was the strongest, he was the fastest I had. The robot was telling me all these crazy stats about him that was outside of basketball. So that's why, you know, I wanted to meet Wilt Chamberlain. I used to call him the Big Dipper because he used to had to duck his head.

Did you ever meet him?

No, I didn't get a chance to meet him. But when I first moved to LA and played out there, I stayed in Prince's old house. 21, 31 and 31. 21, 31, 31, Prince, 21. Yes. Antelo Drive. He actually has an album called it so 3121 or something like that. Antelo should be Prince's old house or something like that?

[Unknown Host]

Well, yes, that's Prince's old house.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

What a memory. You remember his address?

[Unknown Guest]

That's the house I stayed in.

[Unknown Host]

How many times did you go to Prince's house?

[Unknown Guest]

Well, I lived there.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, you lived. That was. So you bought it from him?

[Unknown Guest]

I got that house. I lived there for the time I played for the Lakers. And then right next to my house looks sick. Wilt Chamberlain's house. So that's how.

[Unknown Host]

Get out.

[Unknown Guest]

I was so happy.

[Unknown Host]

Get out of here.

[Unknown Guest]

Yes. The house that he stayed in, his roof will open up like the bedroom roof. He had it to where it could open up. You can see the stars at night.

[Unknown Host]

So that's how met first talked to him or met with.

[Unknown Guest]

He was already gone by then.

You came to League in O4. He died in, I think 1999.

He was already.

This robot of yours, this pre chat GPT thing. There's one story about Will that Everybody knows about.

20,000 that's not real.

Okay. There's allegedly a story that Will Chamberlain has slept with over. I thought it was 10,000 women.

[Unknown Host]

20,000.

[Unknown Guest]

20,000.

Listen, you lose count after a couple thousand.

I don't think that's. I don't think it's possible.

What do you think is accurate there? Here it is, Shaq. And why William was saying he had sex with 20,000 women is a lie. You had meeting 20 women a day. What do you think was accurate with that? I mean, listen, I've seen how NBA players roll.

Okay, so let's do it like this. Back then, there was no teams were flying chartered planes. I mean, when they were flying, they were taking buses or they were taking regular planes. When would he have time to meet.

[Dwight Howard]

How many women a day?

[Unknown Guest]

20 women a day to sleep with him?

Listen, man, you make the time, Dwight, you make the time if it's a priority.

[Dwight Howard]

Okay? But still, there's no way he could.

[Unknown Guest]

Play basketball, practice and sleep with 20 women a day. I don't think that our. I don't think that we have enough inside of us to go out 20 times.

[Unknown Host]

By the way.

[Unknown Guest]

It's a lot.

[Unknown Host]

It's funny you're saying this, because I remember the one interview that he did.

[Dwight Howard]

Okay, he said he embellished it.

[Unknown Host]

But have you seen the interview where. Rob, can you pull up some of the interview. It's not the 20,000 women, of course. You know, Shaq even says that's. That's crazy to be able to do that.

[Unknown Guest]

It's a crazy number.

[Unknown Host]

But type in Wilt Chamberlain max bench press. Okay. Max bench press. I mean this guy strongest. Yeah, but the stuff. Just play that first clip. Just play that first clip. Watch this this episode is brought to you by polestar.

[Dwight Howard]

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[Unknown Host]

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[Unknown Guest]

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[Unknown Host]

With your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover.

[Unknown Guest]

Learn [e-mail] credit card based on the.

[Unknown Host]

February 2024 Nielsen report. Can you go back a little bit with audio or you don't have it?

[Unknown Guest]

No, I can't.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, go for it.

[Unknown Guest]

I mean, I'm a guy bench pressing around 600 pounds.

[Dwight Howard]

When I was at my bench.

[Unknown Host]

600 pounds.

[Unknown Guest]

I mean I'm a guy bench pressing around 600 pounds.

[Unknown Host]

So he says he bench pressed 600 pounds. He says his vertical leap claim was what, 48 inches? Okay. On some interviews he said his vertical leap was 60 inches. Right? He says he squatted 1,000 pounds. That's the claim that he made. That he did. This is it. Watch this. He claimed he had a 48 inch vertical. Okay. Which. That's Michael Jordan status. He claimed he squatted. Just happened. Wilt Chamberlain squat. Okay. Wilt Chamberlain squat claims. Okay. He says he squatted. Do you see the stories there? He said he squats a thousand pounds. You can ask it on ChatGPT, see what it says. That's the same exact thing. He claims he was with 20,000 women. You know, he claims he did all this stuff. How much of it was he was just either psycho competitive or, you know, slight, like exaggerating what he really did.

[Dwight Howard]

I think he was embellishing a lot. I think he was exaggerating a lot of different things. I could see him squatting a lot of weight. I could see him running very fast, bro. I don't know about a thousand pounds. I could see him doing a bench press. I, I, I have talked to Arnold Schwarzenegger and we was in Gold's Gym out in. Yeah, what's that? Santa Monica?

[Unknown Host]

Venice Beach? Yes. It's the one that open in the back. Sick. It's beautiful.

[Unknown Guest]

Pvd's old stomping.

[Dwight Howard]

I saw like everybody get down. Do it now. I was just with Will Chamberlain. I saw him lift 2,000 pounds, but.

[Unknown Guest]

I saw it's not a bad earn.

[Dwight Howard]

But I saw, I did see him there. He did talked about how strong Wilt Chamberlain was. He said the strongest person you got, Will. You got Arnold, who's always lifting weights, saying how strong he was. I don't the 20,000 sounds crazy to me. I could see him doing some crazy weights. I talked to some players who played against him back in the day. There was one guy who said it's so crazy. He said, wilt dunk the ball one time so hard that when he dunked the ball and it hit somebody, the ball hit somebody's foot from the rim and it broke the person's foot. I say get out of here. Y' all are just making stuff up.

[Unknown Guest]

This is what Conan the Barbarian with.

[Unknown Host]

Arnold in the middle. Look at the Giants.

[Unknown Guest]

Even if the 20,000 is not true, a lot of people think that that's 90% overinflated. Even if it's 2,000 women. What are your thoughts on that? Many.

[Dwight Howard]

That's a lot of energy. That's a lot of. You're bringing on a lot of energy to yourself. But again, back up that energy. But back in the day, I mean, it was probably a lot cleaner in life than today. Than today. They were doing a lot of parties. Like was the big parties to have back then. I was like Cloak Clo. Yeah, well, he probably was at Studio 54 with Rick James, who was my favorite. So I could see him doing a lot of stuff.

[Unknown Host]

You were fairly one of the biggest guys yourself. Oh, is this it? This is it. 40 yard dash and four six vertically. This one says five. He ran a hundred yard dash in 10.9 seconds. I mean, you see the stuff that you read about this, but what's the most you ever benched? What, what was your.

[Dwight Howard]

Well, I did, was it 475?

[Unknown Host]

You bench 475? Why, that's sick with those arms, bro. That big.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, my, my, my many reps I did was three. I did three, 1524 times.

[Unknown Host]

Get out of here.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, this one Combine is press 25.

[Unknown Host]

20 times is a big deal.

[Dwight Howard]

I was trying to bench press every day. Wait, what did you see?

[Unknown Host]

You did 315. How many?

[Dwight Howard]

305, 24. 315. It was 24 times.

[Unknown Host]

Holy. And then what was your vertical leap?

[Dwight Howard]

My vertical leap? Vertical was 39.

[Unknown Host]

39. Okay. Kobe's was 38. When you, you hear that his vertically was 38, you're saying that's tough. You think he was, he wasn't 38?

[Dwight Howard]

No, just said anything. Anything in the high 30s to 40s is really, really good. No matter how tall Jordan had a 48. I want to see this. If Jordan really had a 48, that mean he's touching the top of the backboard. I've touched the top of the backboard and I've touc. I'm doubting on a 12 foot, 7 foot goal. If Jordan had a 48 inch vert, he should be sitting on the rim. He should be able to turn around and sit on the rim.

[Unknown Guest]

That's what they call him, Air Jordan.

[Dwight Howard]

But I'm saying there's no way he.

[Unknown Host]

Had a 10ft would be 120ft. So even if you're up 48, if we do the math, he's six six. So if he's six six, let's just say 48. You got 120. He can be. He can be.

[Dwight Howard]

You know, he got top of the backboard.

[Unknown Host]

So you were saying you don't think Mike had a 48?

[Dwight Howard]

No way. He's 48.

[Unknown Host]

Well, you think Spud Web had a 48? 47. Spud Web. Remember Spudwell from the Atlanta Hawks?

[Dwight Howard]

I do remember Spud Web, but they're saying Michael Jordan has the highest vert ever. Okay, what was some Gatorade like Nike type? We're going to pay to make this seem this. Have you seen the people Michael Jordan.

[Unknown Host]

Can you type in what was Spudwood's vertical leap? Spud Web vertical leap. He was 6 to 40. 46. Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

There's spud 48 inch ver. I feel like those are wilt lies.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Dwight Howard]

Call us a will lie, but stay on this.

[Unknown Host]

So if we're going to go and say wilt lies, what's more likely? What's more likely? The fact that Mike had a 48 inch vertical leap or the fact that Bo Jackson's ran a 419 40? What's more likely a lie?

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, Bo knows football. I'm going to go with Michael Jordan with the 48.

[Unknown Host]

So you said Mike's alive. Bo did it.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, Bo had that ball head, man, he was fast.

[Unknown Host]

Oh my God. This is crazy. So, Dwight, so what do you think was Michael's vertical leap? If you're saying 48, is that impossible? What do you think?

[Dwight Howard]

I'm just saying that's so crazy. He's 2 inches off of 50 inch vert. Michael Jordan. That's so insane. I know. He did have some crazy dunks, but 48 inches mean he's touching the top.

[Unknown Host]

Now we're going to a different place.

[Dwight Howard]

So what's up, y' all? This your boy Dwight Howard, AKA the Hall of Fame Superman in the building. If y' all want to connect with me, ask me any questions, just go to my nectar now and I got all the answers for y' all. Yeah, I can tell you how many women Wilt Chamberlain. No, that was just fake. But guess what? I got all the expertise. Basketball, chess. If you want to learn how to do Snapchat, if you want to learn to get that jump shot silky smooth like me. If you want the fresh fade with the nice hair, come check your boy out. We got expertise in a lot of areas. Remember Matt, connect and connect. I'll see y' all there. Peace.

[Unknown Host]

So let's say dunk contest. You against Mike. Who wins?

[Dwight Howard]

Me. I gotta go with myself.

[Unknown Host]

Dwight, stop it.

[Dwight Howard]

What do you mean, what did Michael Jordan. Scotty Pippen did a better free throw line dunk than Michael Jordan. Look it up, look it up, look it up. Look at, look at Michael Jordan's greatest poster of NBA. Don't watch Scotty Pippen. I bet he went first.

[Unknown Host]

I've seen it.

[Dwight Howard]

I bet his jump is further. His. His further back. Yeah, and he's fully extended.

[Unknown Host]

Well, Scotty's also got those miss. You know, a lot of times they talk about how big Jordan's hands are. Have you Scotty's hands? Have you.

[Dwight Howard]

Scotty don't win without. I mean, Michael don't win without Scotty. Let's do it.

[Unknown Host]

You don't think.

[Dwight Howard]

Did he win without him?

[Unknown Host]

Well, did. Did Scotty ever win without Michael?

[Dwight Howard]

But Michael was supposed to be the man.

[Unknown Host]

This is the one you're talking about. So let's see this watch.

[Unknown Guest]

This is in a dunk contest. Yeah, but Scotty never won a dunk.

[Dwight Howard]

Contest because he didn't have the whole night.

[Unknown Guest]

He didn't have the showmanship.

[Dwight Howard]

No. He didn't have Nike behind him like Jordan did the crowd.

[Unknown Host]

What was Scotty's shoe? Was it Converse or Was he. Was he Adidas?

[Dwight Howard]

Watch how easy he did this from the free throw line. Look how easy.

[Unknown Guest]

But watch Jordan's dunk from the free throw line.

[Dwight Howard]

Only because Jordan has a ball head and he has shorter shorts on.

[Unknown Guest]

Wait, how are you gonna start hating on Michael Jordan on the podcast right now?

[Unknown Host]

I hate it.

[Dwight Howard]

I love. So then he got the short shorts. He got the gum chewing. He got the ears. He looked like he's about to go.

[Unknown Host]

He got 50 on a drone curse. It was fun to watch. Blazers. Let's see this. Look at the walk. The smooth, effortless boom. No, he pumped. No, he.

[Unknown Guest]

He.

[Unknown Host]

He brought it back.

[Unknown Guest]

Dwight.

[Unknown Host]

Dwight.

[Unknown Guest]

But you have to give credit where credit's due, because you'll understand this better than maybe anybody. Showmanship counts.

[Dwight Howard]

That was showmanship. Counted the same dude the whole deal. He was just darker than Pippin.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, so what do you think this vertical leap is?

[Unknown Guest]

What do you think you put on a cape? You know about showmanship?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. Okay, what was a show about that? He did the exact same dunk that Scottie Pippen did.

[Unknown Host]

Dude, there's no way.

[Unknown Guest]

Scotty basically acted like he was just walking through the park and jumped out.

[Dwight Howard]

And he did the same thing, and then they just got better pictures.

[Unknown Host]

You know who else did that? So did Brent Perry. Do you remember when Brent Barry died from the.

[Unknown Guest]

Without his.

[Dwight Howard]

What's the difference between Brent Barry and Scotty?

[Unknown Guest]

He's a white guy.

[Dwight Howard]

The colorings. Jordan coloring. Jordan is so.

[Unknown Guest]

Didn't even take off his sweats.

[Dwight Howard]

That's. That's what I'm saying. Nobody's expecting him to do this. And this is expecting.

[Unknown Host]

Fast forward a little bit. All right, so we just. You just said you would beat Michael.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes, you would. My prime dunks. I had more dunks than Michael in for the dunk contest.

[Unknown Host]

Go ahead. Let's see this here.

[Dwight Howard]

He got the windmill out, the paint.

[Unknown Host]

He doesn't even dribble, though. No, there's no way. This is not even. It's not in the same.

[Dwight Howard]

It was in the wrong city. Where was that? At San Antonio.

[Unknown Host]

You know, Charles Barkley loves San Antonio, but going. Going back for.

[Unknown Guest]

Alonzo Morning right here.

[Unknown Host]

Going back to it. So you think you beat Michael in a dunk contest?

[Dwight Howard]

Okay, what did Michael do in the dunk contest? He did the free throw line dunk and the windmill from sick from outside the pit. That's easy.

[Unknown Guest]

He beat Dominique Wilkins, which close to.

[Dwight Howard]

Dominique won those, but they gave it to Mike.

[Unknown Guest]

Are you saying it's a conspiracy?

[Unknown Host]

You're going to say because of Nike.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. Nike cannot see somebody else. Like they cannot see somebody else outside of Nike winning. They have to have.

[Unknown Host]

So who was Dominic Wilkins shoe contract in that, you know, dunk contest? And who was Scottish shoe contract? Let's see, this was Nike. So he was Reebok. And then who was chose wisely? Who was Scottie Pippen shoe contract? Who was it earlier in his year was deal with Avia? I don't even know who that is. Then it was with Nike. So later on he went with Nike. What? He did. So what do you think, Mike? Mike's vertical leap is not 48.

[Dwight Howard]

I mean, he probably got a good 42.

[Unknown Host]

So he's got a 42.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, but you're saying a 48 is so high.

[Unknown Host]

Who's the highest you ever saw? You played with a lot of guys. Did you ever see anybody? Did you ever watch Shannon Brown? Did you ever see some of these? Vince Carter or Tracy McGrady?

[Dwight Howard]

Me and Vince did a dunk contest.

[Unknown Host]

Privately?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

Who won?

[Dwight Howard]

He not gonna say it.

[Unknown Host]

He not gonna say it.

[Dwight Howard]

But we both did this crazy dunk. One dribble from half court, two steps.

[Unknown Host]

How much of a running start do you have?

[Dwight Howard]

No running start. You start at half court. You take one dribble, two steps. I was doing one dribble, two steps between the one dribble, two windmill.

[Unknown Host]

From half court.

[Dwight Howard]

From half court.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, I've seen Giannis run up with two dribbles and he dunks. But he's got a running start.

[Dwight Howard]

No, we start at half court. Boom. Ones I was doing in high school.

[Unknown Guest]

Damn, Dwight, you won how many NBA dunk contests?

[Unknown Host]

Two.

[Dwight Howard]

One.

[Unknown Guest]

Just one. So if you could put in order your top 3 top 5 best NBA dunkers of all time. Where do you rank on that list? And who's your top five? Top ten?

[Dwight Howard]

Okay, I put myself three before. At number one is Vince Carter, ahead of Mike. Ahead of Mike. Yes. Have you seen Vince Carter?

[Unknown Host]

Olympics.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, my God. He got to be number one now. Then you got two. You got to go with Mike. Then you got Dominique Wilkins.

[Unknown Host]

4.

[Dwight Howard]

And nobody's putting them in here. But I got to put him in here.

[Unknown Host]

Who's five?

[Dwight Howard]

Daryl Dawkins.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, you going old Daryl Dins.

[Unknown Guest]

Okay, was his names Sexual Chocolate or something?

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, that was mine. Oh, God. Rick James.

[Unknown Host]

No.

[Unknown Guest]

What was his nickname?

[Dwight Howard]

Chocolate Thunder. Sexual talk. That's what. Coming to America.

[Unknown Guest]

Of course.

[Unknown Host]

Daryl Dawkins.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. Dr. Duncan. I used to.

[Unknown Guest]

Randy Watson. Gotta get Randy Watson does. Where does LeBron rank on this List. He never won an NBA dunk contest.

[Dwight Howard]

He never even competed. Why didn't do one?

[Unknown Guest]

Why didn't he do one?

[Dwight Howard]

LeBron is a dunk contest. No, he's a in game dunker. I don't think he's a dunk contest. I think it's two different things. In game dunker, you have the crowd, you have everyone, you have the whole game going on. So you have the atmosphere and everything to lift you up. And the dunk contest is just you, you gotta find a way to entertain the crowd. You gotta find a way to muster up enough energy to get up and do crazy dunks. So I think that LeBron is a in game dunker. He did do a dunk contest in high school for the McDonald's game, but I don't think it was exciting because he did basically the same dunk that he does now. The one hand like this, the reverse dunk like this. Those are his special dunks, you know, TBD.

[Unknown Guest]

So can I get my all time top five? Number one, Mack McClung. Okay, number two, Brent Barry.

[Dwight Howard]

Okay.

[Unknown Guest]

Number three. I'm just naming white guys here. No, but where would you rank Blake Griffin on this list? Because a lot of people think that he's on top of everybody. Maybe with the exception of Vince Carter.

Blake.

[Dwight Howard]

Blake, top 10 all time. He's top 10. Like the Kendrick Perkins. The what's the one over New York Timothy Mosgar off.

[Unknown Guest]

Oh yeah, dunked over seven footer. Right.

[Dwight Howard]

This one, he's probably got the most like crazy facials.

[Unknown Host]

Cuz you know what you just reminded me of while you guys are talking about this? I, I, I actually want to know what you're going to say about this is, you know the Kobe dunk on you? Like, do you know which one I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. Have you seen this one? You even talk about it, right? Can you?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Rob, this is like out of control. Doesn't make any sense.

[Dwight Howard]

And I was a rookie.

[Unknown Host]

Was it your rookie year? Because most people don't talk about this.

[Dwight Howard]

Dunk cuz it was so long ago.

[Unknown Host]

Watch this, watch this. Oh, that's your rookie year?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, the four. See I, I thought he was on.

[Unknown Host]

You could have met him up there.

[Unknown Guest]

Got you. Dwight.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

You wanted the, the, I don't know.

[Dwight Howard]

What I was doing. Because you know what? I don't know what I was doing. I remember Brian Grant said welcome to the league, young fella. And I remember my homeboy, he made. It was my birthday right after that. Is that who I think no, that's not right.

[Unknown Host]

France, that's Steve Francis.

[Dwight Howard]

Get off the wire.

[Unknown Host]

Good for Francis. While he was like that.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

So Francis was a tough teammate. Pushing.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, he didn't like that. He ain't like nobody dunking and messing with dj. But you know what that did, it woke me up. Cause before that I couldn't hear real good. And after that I heard everything and I was like, you know what? I'm never letting nobody do this to me again. I got three defensive player of the year awards. After that, I got in the weight room.

[Unknown Host]

How many games after your rookie, like game one. What game is that? When that happened?

[Dwight Howard]

That was a while into the season.

[Unknown Host]

That was deep into the season.

[Dwight Howard]

No, actually it had to be early into the season, before December. So, yeah, that was early into the season.

[Unknown Host]

And. And who's Kobe? Like, have you faced him yet? Like, was this the first time when this happens where it's kind of like, holy shit.

[Dwight Howard]

I think it was because he said, our coach said, don't let Kobe split the pick and roll. And so he split the pick and roll and he said, Dwight, if he does just come over high hands, I'm come over high hands. They say, you know, boom. Oh, that's all I heard was boom. Was the ball going through the rim. Boom. And the whole crowd said, oh, I'm like, he got me good.

[Unknown Host]

Does it make sense? Like when you see that up close and personal, does it make Sense? He's a 38 inch vertical. Is that about right?

[Dwight Howard]

See, it's all about angles and timing. And his angle was so fast to the basket and deliberate that my force wasn't enough to stop his force. If I would have came with the exact. Or even more force, we would have met and it probably wouldn't never happened. But so I came over there like, la, la, la, la. You know, so.

[Unknown Host]

But that would never happen to you once you went into your defensive player to mode.

[Dwight Howard]

No, I would have ran. I would have jumped to meet him early either to put them on the ground and say, hey, you're not doing this. This is the only time you're going to get. Or I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna grab the ball and block it.

[Unknown Host]

Olympics. When he went to the Olympics, you guys were on that crazy team, right? And it was actually very. They did a documentary on that. That.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

I don't remember what it was called.

[Dwight Howard]

Redeemed?

[Unknown Host]

Is that what it was called? I actually liked it. Have you seen it or. No, The. The documentary on.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, it's actually good documentary when they're explaining different things, but you're there. This is the story when they say LeBron learned his work ethic from the Olympics, from Kobe, right? That's what you hear about what a lot of people when they're watching and seeing how he prepared, how Kobe prepared the mornings, the afternoons. And you know, Bosch tells a story of what it was like at the Olympics. I'm going to the gym in the morning, come train with me. And he's training with this guy. He's training with that guy. And it's a very different version of the story of the 92 dream team where, you know, Jordan and Chuck Daly are golfing every day. You know, they're going on, there's playing cards late night and like, does Mike ever sleep? Like, what is wrong with this guy? This guy's got to be a vampire, right? What was the Olympic like? Because when you're talking ladies, Dwight, you know, you're tall, you're tough to avoid, and you're a good looking guy, you got a good smile. So you. I can only imagine what happened. So you walk me through who was fun, who was playing cards. You know, we've seen the, the video of you, Chris Paul having the sandwich somewhere in China and LeBron's talking, but some, I don't know where it was it was at, but what was the vibe like, what was Kobe like, what was LeBron like and who was fun?

[Dwight Howard]

See, I was, I was the youngest on the team. So for me, I was wide eyed and I'm just watching everything goofy laughing and everybody did their own thing. You know, Kobe, you know, obviously had his family and his wife there, so didn't see too much of him, you know, outside of being with his family. And then since we were in China, it's like he was not going to be able to go nowhere. The fans were like, we couldn't even stay on the Olympic Village. We had to stay at another hotel that was way off from everybody else and it was ridiculous. So.

[Unknown Host]

You talking about Kobe, star power. Like when he walked out, people would stop. Like, I remember the cheering.

[Dwight Howard]

It was, it was ridiculous.

[Unknown Host]

Other Olympians wanted to take pictures and.

[Dwight Howard]

Autographs and it was crazy. It was, it was insane. Yeah, it was pretty insane. But oh man, the vibe was immaculate. Just being able to go out and sometimes we would go to the village and you know, we would just kick it with, you know, all the, you know, competitors and stuff like that. But I was so young, man, I really didn't know what I was doing. I was 22. So at 22, man, I'm just out there like, man, I'm playing on Olympic team. I'm playing with Kobe, LeBron, Jason Kidd, Michael Redd, Chris Paul, all these guys. Carmelo Wade, Carmelo Wade, like, what a team. I'm just like, man, I'm the youngest guy. So everything was a blur to me. It was happening so fast. I'm seeing Prime Kobe, I'm seeing ball head, Dwyane Wade. Like, that's when he was going crazy. When he cut the hair off. It was all these different things. I'm. I'm watching like, wow. I'm in the middle of greatness and I don't even know what's going on. So then to win the Olympics with everyone, to be in Beijing, to do all that. Oof. The vibes was.

[Unknown Host]

Was the partying as crazy as people were saying? Because. Because this the. You read the article. Just like the athletes from around the world, they were hooking up so much that it was out of control. Was that what the partying was? Or was it that.

[Dwight Howard]

Wasn't you my name Bennett? No, but it was.

[Unknown Host]

Was it hardcore partying or.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't want to say it was hardcore partying. I didn't. I wasn't a party person back then.

[Unknown Host]

So you matured later on the party.

[Dwight Howard]

I would say when I played with The Lakers, with LeBron, we did have, you know, some parties and you know, when we would go to certain cities and stuff like that. But that's probably about it.

[Unknown Host]

Got it. So China was just chill and.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah. Cause we was on a mission, you know, so it was not a lot of stuff we could do. And then everybody wanted to meet us, take pictures and stuff like that. So, you know, there's nowhere for us to hide or do anything like that.

[Unknown Guest]

You're saying when you were in LA with LeBron, you were partying a little bit with that. Best cities to party. And then you've gone around because, listen, I'm from Miami.

[Unknown Host]

I see every city.

[Dwight Howard]

Every city.

[Unknown Guest]

No, but San Antonio ain't Miami though.

[Dwight Howard]

San Antonio is not Miami, but San Antonio is San Antonio.

[Unknown Guest]

So if, if you could give your top, you know, we did with dunks, top five cities to go out and party in.

[Dwight Howard]

You can go out and have a great time in Utah.

[Unknown Host]

Utah dry county.

[Dwight Howard]

Okay. If you want to call it dry, you can call it dry. Or you can get some of them. Them lemon peppered gold wet wings. They can be. No, just kidding. But Santa.

[Unknown Guest]

So Salt Lake City is in your top five Parties.

[Dwight Howard]

I'm saying Salt Lake City. Don't sleep. Shout out jazz. Don't sleep on Milwaukee. Milwaukee, yeah. Don't sleep on these.

[Unknown Guest]

Maybe that's why I don't keep Giannis there.

[Dwight Howard]

Huh?

[Unknown Host]

I don't think.

[Unknown Guest]

No.

[Unknown Host]

All right.

[Dwight Howard]

I would say three more cities. No, I would go la, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, New York.

[Unknown Host]

Chicago, New York.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Dwight, when you're. When you're, you know, you're playing ball, you know, like, I remember when we worked at Bally's, my manager would say, listen, anybody you want to meet, you're going to meet here. The nightclub people, the sports people. You're going to meet everybody else. So we'd go to nightclubs. You had all these connections. Just because, for whatever reason, the gym had a certain connection with people that would come was very weird. Why? I don't know why. NBA. You're in. You're going like, this courtside. You're seeing people that are there and like, oh, shit, this person's here to watch me play. Who was it, like, the first time we were like, they're here to watch us play. Damn, that's crazy. I can't believe they're here. Who was that?

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, man.

[Unknown Host]

First one where you kind of were, like, starstruck.

[Unknown Guest]

Well, see.

[Dwight Howard]

Beyonce.

[Unknown Host]

Beyonce?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah. I used to be in love with Beyonce.

[Unknown Host]

Really?

[Dwight Howard]

You know, I loved her so much. So when I saw her, I was like, oh, it's Beyonce. But it wasn't at a basketball game. It was at a restaurant. And she was like, oh, me and Jay are big fans. And it was crazy. Cause I was like, man, I wish I could meet Beyonce. They come to the games, but I don't want to interrupt them at games and stuff like that. But Beyonce, that was the one. But a lot of actors, Denzel used to come to a lot of games. Jack.

[Unknown Guest]

Jack Nicholson.

[Dwight Howard]

Nicholson used to just be like, man, they go, batman. You know, Batman's here. Well, I mean, Joker.

[Unknown Guest]

Joker.

[Dwight Howard]

There's the Joker. Who? What was her name? You seen Martin before?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, of course. Jesus.

[Dwight Howard]

No, Pam. I used to be. I used to be in love with bdb. And so I remember being in la and she came to one of my games and I was like, oh, man, really? I gotta talk to her. And I. Pam from Martin. That's what I ended up calling her instead of her real name.

[Unknown Guest]

What's up? Well, everyone knows her name.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, I felt so bad. I was like, oh, my God, you're Pam.

[Unknown Host]

That makes sense, though, because that's what, you know, the person by, you know, you're thinking partying la? I'm trying to see. Diddy had what? Diddy had a house in la. In Miami, Right? Was it both or is it just Miami?

[Dwight Howard]

Did he like Puff?

[Unknown Host]

Puff did. Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

I never went to his parties before, which is crazy.

[Unknown Host]

Really.

[Dwight Howard]

Never in my life.

[Unknown Host]

So he never invited you to any of his parties?

[Dwight Howard]

No, no, no, no, no. I've never been to one of his parties.

[Unknown Host]

Was it, was it like. Cuz, you know, LeBron says ain't no party like a Diddy party, you know, and you heard some, a lot of people saying that. Were you ever invited or no, you just weren't invited every.

[Dwight Howard]

I didn't even know he was having crazy parties. I used to have parties, but it wasn't like no Diddy parties say that. Yeah, no baby oil jail. We just had water and pizza.

[Unknown Guest]

Have you been following the Diddy stories at all? Have you been following?

[Dwight Howard]

No, I can't just stay out of it. Yeah. Cause you know, we don't really know what's true, what's not true. You know, anybody could get into court and allegedly say this happened or that happened. You know, a lot of times that's what the lawyers tell them to do. We're gonna make. You gotta make it seem like this person did the, the craziest thing to you. So the judges and with a judge and the, the jury couldn't listen and stuff like that. So it's like, man, you don't really know what's true and what's not true, you know. So again, he has a family, he has kids, grandkids and. And you know, obviously Cass and everybody is involved, they have family and stuff like that, you know. I just hate that when people have public or when they have cases that is so open to the public and people can, you know, see and stuff like that. I think some things should be kept private, you know, especially for the kids sake and for all these generation kids sakes. They don't need to be knowing about Johnson and Johnson baby. Old men used in different ways than what, you know, I used it for when I was a kid.

[Unknown Host]

So did you have guys that would tell you, they're like, hey Dwight, don't go to this, don't hang out with that guy, don't party over here, don't do this. Were there guys that would mentally prepare you for things or. No, the vets or maybe coaches?

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, the vets. The one thing that our coach said, I'll never forget this, he said, don't let Miami seduce you. So that was the one thing I will never forget who said, which coach was this? Johnny Davis. When I first got into the league, he, he said, don't let Miami seduce you. Miami can seduce you.

[Unknown Guest]

I don't know what you're talking about, Dwight.

[Dwight Howard]

I do. I mean if you go out Fort Lauderdale and all over Boca Raton, it's just, see we call them. See we always in the locker room with, you know, we call them. What do you call the legs with the hairy legs? You know, we don't want to be around hairy legs when we not playing. We want some soft legs, be around some nice looking women. So if you go to Miami, we'll seduce you because it's a lot of beautiful women in Miami are in the Florida area. So used to always tell us and tell me personally to you, Dwight, do not let Miami seduce you.

[Unknown Guest]

What was that?

[Unknown Host]

Your.

[Unknown Guest]

So I've seen, I've been around the NBA players a little bit. Some guys are into, you know, smoking a little bit. That's their thing. Some guys like to drink. They could show up wasted before a game. Right. Some guys are into cars, some guys are into, you know, jewelry and all that. Some guys are just straight up. I like the women. What was your advice? How did you like navigate the NBA and where did you, you know, kind of fall into the spectrum?

[Dwight Howard]

Because we all have it, I think. What? Money. When you get a chance to have any type of money, it, it kind of bring out, it can bring out, you know, some of the things, your addictions and stuff like that. So when I was first in the league, I didn't drink, I didn't party, I didn't go out. But I did like getting cars a little bit. You know, I did have some nice cars and I dated.

[Unknown Guest]

A lot.

Giving Wilt Chamberlain a run for his money or you kind of doing your own thing?

[Dwight Howard]

I don't want to say but when.

[Unknown Host]

I was in Orlando, 21000 women.

[Dwight Howard]

When I was in Orlando, my nickname was Little Wilt. Okay, But I didn't like that. I don't like that.

[Unknown Guest]

No, Dwight, you're how old now? I don't like it. It's competitive.

[Unknown Host]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You. It's a, it's a different reference he made. I don't know if you caught it. He did an interview one time. I don't know what it was with you. And that one was. It was all about the D. And it was. And she's not tracking and I don't know who's standing to your Left. Who was that on your left that just ran off? Who was it?

[Dwight Howard]

It was Dennis Scher. Got in so much trouble.

[Unknown Host]

It was all about the D. You know, it's just. And then it's, it's the D. I felt so bad.

[Dwight Howard]

I felt so bad because, see, this, the thing, I'm not thinking like, stop, Dwight. This is, this is, I'm not buying this now, now this, this is crazy.

[Unknown Host]

Let the audience see first and then you can, you can, you can narrate. Go ahead.

[Unknown Guest]

Big shots.

[Dwight Howard]

And then on, on the other end, we got some stops.

[Unknown Guest]

Our D was good tonight.

Before the game, Ken Bazemore told me it's too far into the season to.

[Dwight Howard]

Allow two losses back to back.

[Unknown Guest]

If you agree with that, how important is that win?

[Dwight Howard]

I was very important part. But it starts with the D. You.

[Unknown Guest]

Know what you're doing, Dwight?

You know exactly.

[Unknown Host]

Stop it. You're like.

[Dwight Howard]

So the question is, did you ever.

[Unknown Host]

Play defense on her? That's the question.

[Dwight Howard]

I can't doubt. That actually was one of my teammates, Sam Decker. That's his wife.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. And you didn't know that?

[Dwight Howard]

No, we, that it was all. We were. We all know each other, you know, like, so this is like, I'm just joking about like, you know, like us playing defense and using the D as a reference.

[Unknown Host]

Stop it.

[Dwight Howard]

Which, you know, was very immature at the time and I wanted to laugh and you know, I, I, I shouldn't have did it. You know, I feel bad for it because, you know, I was supposed to be a representation of the team, representation to the league as an older player and, you know, as a vet. I shouldn't have done that with Dennis. He's looking up to me and stuff like that. But again, you know, I was, I took it too far.

[Unknown Guest]

I don't, I don't.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, I took it.

[Unknown Guest]

I think it was okay. But by the way, you're about to.

[Dwight Howard]

Be 40 this year. My coach went crazy.

[Unknown Guest]

Did it really?

[Unknown Host]

Who was the coach?

[Dwight Howard]

Oh my God.

[Unknown Guest]

That was Mike Woodson, wasn't it?

[Dwight Howard]

No, it wasn't Mike Woodson. It was. Why do I forget his name? He was just in, he was just in Phoenix. He was just in Phoenix. Oh.

[Unknown Host]

Monty Monta. You know who I'm talking about.

[Dwight Howard]

Who was Mike Budenhoser?

[Unknown Guest]

Oh, Bootenholzer.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Landon was great back then.

[Dwight Howard]

I shouldn't have did what I did because the team didn't like that and it was wrong. I felt so bad at the time after I did it because I wanted some. I was doing it for shits and giggles and stuff like that, but not realizing, like, I can't be saying this on national tv.

[Unknown Host]

You cannot be saying that.

[Dwight Howard]

Me, I can't be saying, like. See, the thing is, a lot of times, like, so I know people say, like, this might be crazy, but there's DH12. DH12 is the basketball player on Duncan. Then you got Dwight Howard. That's at home. That's the. The jokester, the prankster, the, you know, family man. You know, all these different things. That's Dwight Howard. That's daily base. So what. What I did was mix Dwight Howard with the professional Dh12. Dh12 can't be doing that. Dh12, dominate basketball. Go out there, be the professional. Dwight Howard is. Behind closed doors, whatever your vices are, whatever you want, you got to keep those there, you know. So a lot of times, I think that's what has cost me in my career with certain things, because I've kind of mixed, you know, you know, the person I am is Dwight Howard off the court with who I have to be on the court.

[Unknown Host]

So funny, because when I watch you, you remind me of an old friend who is playful and jokes around about stuff and. And always wanted to leave a little bit of suspense. And, you know, and you've done stuff where, you know, the market is like, is Dwight Howard straight? Does Dwight Howard. You know, when you do the gay.

[Dwight Howard]

Stuff and it's like, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And then the market reacts, and I'm like, so this guy's either straight, he's gay, he's bisexual, he's fooling everybody. So which one is it? So you're not gay at all?

[Dwight Howard]

Hell, no, I'm not gay. So that. That thing started with me being in Houston. I was with the Rockets, and one of my teammates was Isaiah Cannon. And so there's this clip where it looks like I grab his joints, but it was his thigh. But the way I did it, it looked like I grabbed his thing, and it was just his pants. And so we were.

[Unknown Host]

Robbie wants to see how you grabbed it. So Rob is like this right there. Which one is it?

[Dwight Howard]

This. Right. I had just got finished during the interview, and, you know, people were trying to make it seem like I was doing something.

[Unknown Host]

Let me see it. Right.

[Dwight Howard]

Really strange. So I kind of grabbed this thigh and it don't. It looks real nasty. It looks real nasty. But, see, people don't know I'm a jokester. I like to play around, you know, and do crazy stuff. And I remember one of my teammates, Trevor Reza, used to always Say, all right, now you play like you gay, people gonna really think you gay. So you can't be doing that. And so I'm like, man, I ain't gay. I'm not just jokes. But we do live in a society where, you know, they see something or they might hear something or somebody say something crazy, then it could put you out there in a way that's not good, you know? So I had this situation in this situation with me talking about the D, all this crazy stuff. So now you got people assuming and saying things like that. So if you came out today and.

[Unknown Host]

You said you're gay, you would be the number one profile on Grindr. I mean, you would be hit up. Like, people would be like, dwight Howard has officially made the announcement. Okay, so that's good that we cleared it up, because you know that. That when that rumor started circulating, a lot of people were talking about it. Let me go to this next thing. You just had a scuffle with Lance Stevenson in the. What is it? Big three or whatever happened. Yeah, so what's crazy is, like, we had a cube here, I think, a year ago, Rob, year and a half ago, something like that. And he was here because of what's going on with Big three and. And the own. The last time I saw anything with Big three, when then all of a sudden I went and tracked who was the MVP of the Big three and the coaches. And then you saw Stephen Jackson in the locker room calling. I'd know that. I don't know if you saw that clip or not. Rob, play this clip. What happened here with you and Steven? Go ahead. Hey, business owners, we know you know the importance of maximizing every dollar. With the Delta Sky Miles reserve Business American Express card, you can make your expenses work just as hard as you. From afternoon coffee runs to stocking office supplies and even team dinners, you can earn miles on all your business expenses. Plus, you can earn 110,000 bonus miles for a limited time through July 16th. The Delta Sky Miles reserve business card. If you travel, you know, minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Offer in 7-16-25. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal, so there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 GB of networks busy.

[Dwight Howard]

Taxes and fees extra.

[Unknown Host]

See mint mobile.com Is this an act or is this real?

[Dwight Howard]

No, it's no act, but it's too much going on. So the whole game, it was a.

[Unknown Host]

Lot of, can you find another angle? Cuz I haven't seen this angle. This is the angle. Watch this. Go for it.

[Dwight Howard]

You see, like, he put his hand up in my face like he was gonna punch me. And so when that happened, I'm like, yo, bro, like you doing too much. And then he did it again like he was gonna. Like he was gonna punch me. And so I'm putting my guard up, cause I'm like, if somebody put. They like, this is a far, a far reach for somebody to connect with a punch. But when somebody's like, I tell my kids, if somebody is in your space, in your boundary and they put their hands up, you gotta always be ready for. You never know. And so when he did that, I'm like, okay, I'm like, this is too much. But then once I got grabbed him and did all that, I said, oh, shoot, now I'm already in it. It's a lot going on. But you know, I don't want. That's why I was saying, I don't want people to look at me and say, abe's a hothead and this is how he is.

[Unknown Host]

I don't think anybody would ever call you a hothead.

[Dwight Howard]

Well, see, when I was in Orlando and leaving Orlando and going to these different teams, I was called a cancer. I was called this type of person in the locker room, and I hate that. You know, that's not who I am.

[Unknown Host]

That's different though. I heard that. What I'm saying is I don't think anybody called you a hothead. I think when you were, you know the same thing. When LeBron left to. To Cleveland, to Miami, he got the treatment. You got the treatment when you left because the rich DeVos family, the magic, kind of looked at you as like their son and they really loved on you and they were protective of you, and they really wanted to make the investment for that next layer to have. By the way, you were never. Were you ever teammates with T. Mac or no, you guys?

[Dwight Howard]

No. He left and he said he didn't want to be no teammates go to high schooler.

[Unknown Host]

And I'm like, he didn't say that, bro.

[Dwight Howard]

You came out of high school.

[Unknown Host]

He didn't say that.

[Dwight Howard]

He did Something similar to it. Like he don't, you know, he don't have time to play with a high school. High school. And I kind of. Dude, the two of you guys, I kind of understand. But see me playing with him, I probably wouldn't have developed Same thing with Kobe and Andrew Bynum because you have a main scorer, somebody who's going to get a lot of buckets. So he's not going to be trusting me in his prime years to win cuz I got to develop. So he's like, why would I give him the ball? Like. And I understand, you know, something similar to that. But I was like, dang. I really. I used to wear his shoes in high school. The T Max from Adidas. They was the. One of the coldest shoes ever. So I was like, man, playing with TMac would have been, would have been great. But think about it. McGrady at that time, the almost the pinnacle of his career. After that he went to Houston and he then he do like the three. Did he go to 13 points? 13 points in like 30 seconds? Something crazy.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

When he played with Spurs.

[Unknown Host]

That's against the Spurs? I think so.

[Dwight Howard]

I think that for my development's sake, I think that's why the Magic was like, we're gonna move away from him and then bring in a Grant Hill, Steve Francis, Cottino Mobley, you know, all these guys. Tony Batist, some veteran mindset, some people. Cause we haven't seen this young kid before. He's coming from a 16 graduate school. Sixteen people graduate, you know, school where it's six guys, 10 girls. He's coming from a small area, you know, into this to this team. So let's try to put him around some people that could kind of guide him in the right direction, you know, So I understood what they were doing. But for me then I had a lot of, you know, people who was not used to money, not used to working with teams and stuff like that. I was very young, you know, so I'm trusting family, trusting cousins and stuff and things like that. And it didn't work out well. But I learned so many life lessons that helped me with my future.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, Magic was, you know, there's guys that are winners on teams, they're not fun to watch. There's teams that are winners and they're fun to watch. Like I couldn't watch Cleveland Cavs back in the days. Mark Price and Gerald Wilkins and whatever, Craig Elon, they're winning.

[Unknown Guest]

Hot Rod Williams, by the way, Larry Nance.

[Unknown Host]

I couldn't even watch the Spurs. I couldn't even watch the spurs too much. All fundamentals. Maybe Parker was a little exciting. Probably the most exciting player on the spurs was right. But there was no excitement there. Right. But dude, you watched the Magic. At any point, he's going. You watched TMac, you watched Carter Marbury was fun to watch. AI was fun to watch.

[Unknown Guest]

I feel like it's real entertainment back.

[Unknown Host]

It was entertainment. It was, yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Remember, it was NBA E, NBA, actual NBA entertainment. I think now see, that's what I was used to, the whole entertainment. And that's a lot of times I got caught up in entertaining. So the whole D thing that I did all the others, a lot of.

[Dwight Howard]

Time I'm like, okay, I gotta entertain. And that kinda can twist players minds and coaches or teammates. And like, maybe he's not as focused cause he's trying to entertain. But it's like, hold up, this is why 20,000 people are here. I done already put in the hard work in the gym, in the weight room. I done did all the crazy stuff, the mean stuff. Now with the 20,000 people out here, I got us. They, they coming to see Superman one time. This is the only time they get to see me play.

[Unknown Host]

Dwight, who had a physique like you, as tall as you. Shaq was big, but Shaq wasn't like a physique. Physique like body. David Robinson. Oh, you know who else? Kevin Wilkins.

[Dwight Howard]

That's what made me get strong.

[Unknown Host]

Kevin Willis.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, Kevin Willis. One day I tried to box him out and he did the chicken wing on me.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah, he was strong.

[Dwight Howard]

He had little short arms. Just look at his arms. He can't even touch his knees. Did I say that out loud? I did not say that. Y' all are crazy people.

[Unknown Guest]

Also, I think Giannis has kind of.

[Unknown Host]

Got to build like Giannis does.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

Alonzo Mourning a little bit.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, Alonzo had a great physique. You're by the way, speaking of these.

[Unknown Guest]

Big guys, you're kind of like the end of what I would call like the great truth centers.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

When you came in the league, bro, I mean between David Robinson, Aim, Elijahan, Zo, Rick Smith, even Shaq legend.

[Unknown Host]

I mean now you have Y Smith like pace.

[Unknown Guest]

He was huge.

[Dwight Howard]

He was giving people.

[Unknown Guest]

But now you got YIC a little bit.

[Unknown Host]

Got a shot out today.

[Unknown Guest]

I mean, got shot. He's Indiana Pacers in the finals now.

[Unknown Host]

I remember, you know, Y2, Joel Embiid.

[Unknown Guest]

We'll see what happens there. Who's your all time? Like who would you g mirror your game After. I don't know what happened with you and Sha. I'd love for you to elaborate on that, but just the guys you. The guys that you would elaborate on that you would.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't know why he was tripping. I would. Sha was tripping on you for a while. It's so crazy. Looking back on it, I had the. I would say the intensity. Like Zo. I like to play hard, lift weights and go hard. Like Zo did go for. I felt like his motor was different. So when we played against the Heat and they had him and Shaq, I would have rather going against Shaq than Zo, only because Zo was going to give me a fight every play, you know what I'm saying? And Shaq.

[Unknown Guest]

Zoe was a better defender.

[Dwight Howard]

Zoe is just out there on every play. You know, Shaq is just. I'm.

[Unknown Guest]

I'm too big and too strong.

[Dwight Howard]

I want to just get them all in the pan.

[Unknown Host]

But did Zoe come in same year as Larry Johnson? Big, big. Was it Grandma Mao or did they come in with Shaq same year?

[Dwight Howard]

I think it was Shaq because they was going for real.

[Unknown Guest]

I think Shaq was one and then Zoe was two. I think that was 1992.

[Unknown Host]

But they fought. That's what it is. LJ fought. Fought. Loun morning, if you remember that one.

[Dwight Howard]

My favorite player. One of my favorite players. Cuz Grandma Ma.

[Unknown Host]

What is he doing? Is he around? Like, I haven't heard anything from.

[Dwight Howard]

And it's so crazy because a lot of the players that were swole back then. Yeah, well, the last time I saw Larry Johnson, it was just like he was lean. Like real lean dude. He was like a human.

[Unknown Host]

He was.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh my God.

[Unknown Host]

Did he win a dunk contest or he went into a dunk contest.

[Dwight Howard]

I used to love Charlotte.

[Unknown Guest]

He had a great personality.

[Dwight Howard]

Yes, but.

[Unknown Guest]

But back to the centers. I mean, even Patrick Ewing, who was your. You're saying. You're saying that Zoe was who you mirrored your game after the most?

[Dwight Howard]

No, I didn't mirror my game after any center because I didn't want to play center. So I watched. I wanted to be a point guard, so I watched Magic Johnson. I wanted to be a 6, 9, 6, 10 point guard. So I played point guard all the way until my senior year in high school. And then when I first got to the league, I was a 4. And then they changed me to the 5. Who was. I was Tony Bati and Kelvin Kato. Cause I was faster than a lot of guys. So instead of having a taller center, they put Me at center because I could. Even though I was not as 72 or 7 3, I could jump and my arms was as long and I was a good defender. So they started interchanging me 4 and 5. This is when 4 and Fives was not shooting threes. Our first stretch big was dirt, now Whiskey. And then Kevin Garnett did a little bit and then he like dirt did stretch threes. Kevin Garnett did two pointers. But at right on, he would stand on the three point line like, what are you doing, kg? Just shoot three. This is a tweener. You're messing us up, you know, but yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

So back to Shaq. What was. Because you both got drafted from Orlando, both number one pick pick, you both called Superman, both physically dominant.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't know what it was.

[Unknown Guest]

You think he had an issue with you and you didn't necessarily want to like, fight back? What was, what was it? There was something there. Was there not.

[Dwight Howard]

I don't know what he really had an issue with.

[Unknown Guest]

He had an issue, though. Can we agree?

[Dwight Howard]

I, I, I believe so. Because I didn't see a lot of other players that he talked about the way that he was just going on about me for the longest. But again, the last time I saw him was in Orlando. And I was just before that, I said, man, if I see Shaq, no matter where we're at, I'm gonna go and talk to him. Cause this gotta stop. Like, first of all, he's damn near my dad age. Second of all, like, I watched him play my whole life. So I have the utmost respect for him as a player and, you know, being the most dominant center to ever play. But, like, what is our issue here? You know, Say, like, what really is our issue? Like, I don't know you from nowhere for us to have this type of issue.

[Unknown Host]

But I get it though. But I get it though, because you know, to me, like, when I followed that very closely as a fan, like, you know, sometimes fans feel like they really know you and they want to tell you what to do. I'm talking from the fans perspective. And Shaq came in. Shaq was another one of those in the category of human specimen, most dominant guy that came in and just killed it, right? But Kobe said something about Shaq. He said the thing that made Shaq unique was Shaq big, but was Shaq was vicious. His words. When I interviewed Kobe six, seven years ago, whatever the timeline was delayed Kobe, great conversation. So Shaq was vicious. Now here's the thing. He's raised by a Military dad, extreme discipline. Shaq was raised by girls that were tough on him. And, you know, he was challenged to be who he is. And then that's Shaq. That's his wiring. And then you come in. That's not your personality. Your personality is not. Is not that. Just like LeBron's personality is not at all like Kobe or Michael. Right? They're very different. And you're just trying to enjoy playing the game. And, you know, the vets would constantly like to compare you. He doesn't do this. If I was him, he. When I was 28, 14, 28 15, I made the free throws when he counted. So it was like the older brother picking on the younger brother, and the younger brother is just trying to enjoy the game. That was the vibe that I felt from it. And then lineage. Orlando. Orlando. Okay. So he would have won at Orlando and Shaq didn't. You know, these were the moments that the market was look like right now. Halliburton had a shot at winning for the pacers. They're down three two. They should have won the two the two games ago when they were up two one, and they were up, like, 13 points in the third quarter. And then all of a sudden, I go to sleep with Dylan. I'm like, ah, it's over. Wake up. What? They won by seven. What did OKC do? You come back. The guy had however many points in the fourth quarter, they seem like they're repeating again with what happened when Vogel took Hibbert out center, the All Star that year, averaging like 16 points a game. So to me, it's that constant comparison. It's like, dude, I just want to play. And then Superman. Superman. That's how I saw it.

[Unknown Guest]

I hate it. Because comparison, to me, comparison is the thief of joy. And anytime you try to compare someone's game to another game, and now you're belittling both players. Because me and Shaq are two different prototypes. You know, he's 7 3, 360 pounds, 320.

Built different.

You know, I'm really 6 10. And my highest is 265, 270. You're talking about a behemoth of a man. With Shaq being 7 2, 7 3, my voice was never that deep. Let me stop. But no, I love Shaq.

But you're saying, the next time I see Shaq, I'm gonna go talk to him. You never reached out and said, dude, why are you.

Yeah, we did. You know, But I was like, I'm tired of going back and forth on the Internet or text message, and I want to see him in person like this, back and forth. Gotta stop, whatever it is. So when I got inducted into the. The Magic hall of Fame, I saw him in. Where was we at Orlando, at this restaurant. I was like, man, I'm finna go over there and talk to him.

How long ago was this?

This was a couple months ago.

Oh, this is very recent.

Recent.

So you went up and you said, hey, Shaq, what's going on?

I said, what's up, dog? We gotta sit down. Let's talk.

And he said what?

He said, let's go.

So how'd that conversation go?

We sat down 30, about 30 minutes, cleared some things up. Apologize. If he felt. If I felt like I. If he said he apologized, if I felt like I did. If he did anything that was hating or anything like that, that's great. That's not who he is.

[Unknown Host]

I love that.

[Unknown Guest]

He wasn't trying to hate. He was trying to motivate me. And I told him, you know, I felt like, you know, if you wanted to do that, I think the best way to do it was to come talk to me behind closed doors instead of saying things publicly. Now you're giving other people an opportunity to chime in. And now you got people on the outside messing up a relationship that they don't know nothing about. And we could have been done, got this squashed or whatever. It may be a long time ago, but again, let's do it now. Let's get this out.

But it took. This was a couple months ago. It took 20 years to have this conversation.

I had to stop playing.

[Unknown Host]

It did.

[Unknown Guest]

I couldn't do it.

What do you think? Because you've sat down with Shaq. I know you guys have a relationship. Obviously, we're. We're meeting, but I totally get it.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, no, no, I totally get. You have to realize, like, when. When a players. And I'm just going to tell you from my person, when a player's in your city, you look at that as your son. I know this sounds weird, as a fan, but that. That's the. Like, we looked at Kobe like ours. He's ours, right? That's how you look at a player. And there's always the expectations always going to be high while they're playing. Once it's done, you know what? Everybody says, we're going to miss Dwight. That's how this works. Like, you know, the game is over with. Like, I miss Nick Van Axel. Really? I mean, when the Lakers had nobody number nine I think. I don't. I think his number was number nine. Can you see what Nick Van Axel's number was? I so enjoyed watching him play. I so enjoyed watching him play. Yet nine. I enjoyed watching. What was his name on the Lakers?

[Unknown Guest]

Anthony Peel.

[Unknown Host]

Anthony Peeler. Lefty dude I just liked. By the way, did you know Anthony Peele got into a fight with Garnett and threw an elbow. Peter was a tough guy. Peter wasn't like, yeah, Peter was fun. I read his rookie card. He didn't do anything crazy, but I enjoyed watching Peter playing. And they step away like, oh, man, we're gonna. So to me, that's the dynamic with Dwight and Shaq is finally like, look, we're in the same place. Hey, you got your chip, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna be a first ballot hall of Famer. There's no question about it. What is your timeline, by the way? Next year or the following year?

[Dwight Howard]

No, I'm here.

[Unknown Host]

You're in. Already locked in. When did that happen?

[Dwight Howard]

This summer. They announced it this summer. And I'll be going in August. No. September 4th.

[Unknown Host]

Freaking awesome.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

By the way, first battle. If you have first battle, for sure. I mean, it's the. Your. Your career was an insane career of what you did. So it was great seeing you and Shaq have that conversation. When I saw that two weeks ago, I'm like, oh, that's cool.

[Dwight Howard]

And you saw it.

[Unknown Host]

No, I was watching it. When I was watching.

[Unknown Guest]

Was televised.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, yeah, you can see.

[Dwight Howard]

We had a. We went on his. I went on his podcast. But I. I felt like if we do have a conversation, we should have, like, y' all. It should be y' all, too. And we should all sit down with Shaq. Come on, big fella. With you and Shaq. Yeah, let's go ahead and get it out.

[Unknown Guest]

Wants that.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, I think everybody would love that.

[Unknown Host]

I think Shaq would do that. I think that would be a. That would be it. It literally is like, you know how the one nickname you don't like, the little Wilt, because I think you can give better names than little Will, but like big bro, you know, little brother type of thing that's going on here. I especially. Especially the. The way it got started. Both of you guys coming to the.

[Dwight Howard]

Magic, but I have to see now. This is crazy to me now. The Superman nickname for me came because one day I jumped over my. One of my teammates in practice, and I used to go crazy in the weight room. That's how I got the nickname Superman. And I used to always listen to Soulja Boy and he had a song called Superman. So. So that was how Superman came. It had nothing to do with Shaq, anything like that. So I was like, why would Shaq get upset about saying Superman? Now when I did this, right before I did the dunk, my teammates in Orlando had asked me to jump from the free throw line and see how crazy it'll look. Because when you be jumping, it look like you flying. So I did it in practice. Jameer threw it over the goal the same way it looked in. In the dunk contest is how it looked in our practice. So they was like, man, this is crazy. You gotta do it. Then Carlos Arroyo said, man, you should put on a Superman outfit. And I was like, why? He's like, cousin, it look crazy if you do that so well.

[Unknown Host]

This is legendary. This is gonna be in the history books of the NBA 50 years from.

[Dwight Howard]

No, this is a onesie.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. This ain. This ain't going away, bro.

[Dwight Howard]

Like, I know onesie. Like the outfit. I had to cut the bottom and the legs and the boots off.

[Unknown Host]

So this whole thing is custom.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, I had to tie it under the bottom. Like.

[Unknown Host]

That is so funny.

[Dwight Howard]

Get out of it. Like a onesie.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

That's why the underwear part is so high. That is so, so tight. Yeah. I just know cuz it's a onesie. It's a onesie. It's a whole outfit. I picked it up from Party City the night before. Yeah, from Party City.

[Unknown Host]

They don't make you for a guy.

[Dwight Howard]

That'S 6, 11 and so now it's crazy that Shaq is. He. He says he wants to be called Thanos. Now I'm going tell you how this is crazy. My favorite movie is Iron Man. No, Avengers. And my favorite character is Thanos. Now I've said this. I've been on public for saying this multiple times. I had a car that was all purple. I got it before I started with the Lakers. You can look it up. I did a video. I put the ring on the front of it and it started. So that was it right there. My purple car. I got it because of Thanos. He's my favorite character.

[Unknown Host]

Why is he your favorite character?

[Dwight Howard]

What he stood for in a movie. How he didn't allow his emotions to stop him from fulfilling his destiny. And a lot of times us in life, we allow our emotions and other things to stop us from really making it and being what we need to in life. And there was A scene in the movie, but it was really a really crazy scene to where he had to sacrifice his daughter. Now, obviously, they took it too far in the movie, but it was to show, like, sometimes we have to be willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to make sure that we do what our life's mission is, our life's purpose. You know what I'm talking about?

[Unknown Host]

Of course I know the cliff.

[Dwight Howard]

And, yeah, that's what made me like, man, thank you.

[Unknown Host]

Were you in a villain season of your life? Like, were you in a. I didn't.

[Dwight Howard]

Even see him as a villain.

[Unknown Host]

You didn't think he was a villain?

[Dwight Howard]

So I. I actually met Josh Brolin.

[Unknown Host]

The character, phenomenal actor.

[Dwight Howard]

I met him on a plane going to see the premiere of Avengers. I was like, man, I gotta meet Thor and Thanos, my two favorite characters. He's on the plane. So I write him a letter and give it to him while I'm on the plane. I'm like, man, thank you for what you did in this movie because it inspired me to become a better man and a better person. Thanos, wow. Because the first time he had an opportunity to do his mission in life, he allowed his emotions, he allowed everybody else to stop him. The second time, he completed his. His mission, and he didn't allow nobody to get in the way. And what I realized is that all of us have to get to that place where we can't allow how other people feel their thoughts, their emotions, or anything to deter us off our purpose. And there's times in the games in life where I've. I've done that.

[Unknown Host]

Dude, this is. I just went on the chatgpt and I typed in, was Thanos a villain in Avengers? Okay, you ready for this? It's like, you can type that up. Yes. Thanos was the main villain in Avengers. You know, in avengers, Infinity War 2018. And the end game, which endgame and the way the movie ends is just ridiculous. Who is Thanos? A Titanian warlord from Marvel Comic universe. Believes in restoring balance to the universe by wiping out half of life.

[Dwight Howard]

So is he a villain to prevent.

[Unknown Host]

Overpopulation and resource collapse? That's a villain, Doug.

[Dwight Howard]

That's a villain to the what? How? We would say it's a villain, but obviously that person is needed to restore balance. Everything in life is all about balance. If we look, if you have too much of one thing, it could cause problems. So everything in life has balance. The way they had to put it in the movie was to show that people had to leave. But, you know, let's just say, like, earlier we talked about vices or, you know, every NBA player has vices. I think a lot of the NBA players who've been at the top, what they've been able to do was, let's say if somebody's vice is kd, he likes to smoke, right? Yeah. So let's.

[Unknown Host]

He's very open about it.

[Dwight Howard]

Let's say his vice is smoking. But he's probably learned how to balance it out to where he's not overdoing it to himself. He's not abusing it. He's using it for what it's for. Let's say he's using it for medical reasons, medicinal reasons. He's learned how to balance it out. I think everything in life is about balance. The earth itself is alive. It's a living, breathing organism. So sometimes it has to balance itself out, which means that death was a part of life. Some of us, we all. We all have our time on this earth.

[Unknown Host]

So that's a trip that you're saying thanos, man, but respect thanos.

[Unknown Guest]

If I'm listening to everything you're saying, and it's like you have Stoicism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, all in this dude from Atlanta's body.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

So have you read any Marcus Aurelia Stoicism? Meditations? PD made me read that book before I joined VT's. Have you read any Stoicism? Are you familiar with this?

[Dwight Howard]

I haven't read any, but I have done some research in a lot of different spiritual beliefs from traveling. I've learned so much from going to Asia, seeing the different Buddhist temples and stuff like that. Heard a lot about Taoism from being in Asia. Actually, my shoes that I had with Adidas, they came up with the shoe because of my spiritual beliefs, but also how I viewed, let's say, balance. So my shoes, they would call them yin and yang, the two sides of Dwight. You had this one side that's always, you know, happy, smiling. Then you got the mean side on the court that would elbow you in the face, throw you on the ground, call you all types of names, and then pick you up after the game and go eat. So it's like I had to balance out both sides. And my faith has been a big part of my career.

[Unknown Guest]

What would you say that your faith is? Are you saying you're Christian? Are you saying that you're a multi?

[Dwight Howard]

I am Christian, but we call it Khairastian.

[Unknown Guest]

Khalrastian. What's that? Explain that.

[Dwight Howard]

Ka means spirit and ra, Stian. Khairostian and see if it shows up. K A, K A K A.

[Unknown Host]

And then R A S, T, I A N. Separate two words. Karastian.

[Unknown Guest]

Karastian sounds almost Armenian. Pbd.

[Dwight Howard]

See if it comes up.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, there it is. Close to Rastafari on the belief in single God called Ja.

[Dwight Howard]

I studied some of this. My actual. We are non denominational. So there are. I want to say it's over 28, 4800 religions or 4200 religions or something like that. You can fact check that just to make sure.

[Unknown Host]

Boss Rob, he's talking to you.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, I think it's 4200 religions or something like that, if I'm not mistaken.

[Unknown Guest]

So you don't. You are Christian or you consider yourself Karl Rosti?

[Dwight Howard]

I am Christian, but that is a deeper part of it. Interesting because Christians have 4,200 religions and then it's 35,000, 3,500 or some different Christian denominations, if I'm not mistaken, in the world. So there's a lot going on as far as people's religions and their beliefs. Yeah. See different Christian denominations. 4,500.

[Unknown Guest]

45,000.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, 45,000.

[Unknown Guest]

Sorry, your tattoos, what do you have right there? You have some religious meanings right there.

[Dwight Howard]

All my tattoos, they have some type of meaning. A lot of people were like, why did you get tattoos at a later age? I got my tattoo, it was around 32 or 33, real late because I never wanted to put anything on my body. But then I started reading and traveling and started learning different things. I started with this right here. The eye of. Or the hand of Fatima with the evil eye of the eye of Ra. This is actually my. And this is when the sign is up like this. It's like pushing away any negativity, any evil when it's down like this, the hands, it's like you're calling in positivity and stuff like that. Then I love Egyptology. The sun, Amun Ra. I don't know if you heard of Amun Ra. And then it was just Anubis. You heard of Anubis? Anubis is the God that kind of takes you into the underworld. So when we, when we transition, Anubis was said to be the person who would take us to the afterlife.

[Unknown Guest]

A lot of this is in old Pharaoh Ramses, Egyptian days. Yeah, I'm familiar.

[Dwight Howard]

Some, some stuff is in the Bible but they kind of put it in a way where you have to really go deeper. So a lot of times people just read the Bible and Just read it. Just say I read it. You know, instead of really diving deeper into what it's talking about, the words and stuff like that.

[Unknown Host]

That's cool. A deeper place for you. What's next for you now? Now that you know you're at a different phase of your life, what's, what's Dwight going to do? And you know, you got money, you have notoriety, people know your name. You're about to be hall of fame inductee in August. You know, this year you're going through all this. What's next for Dwight Howard? At Capella University, you can learn at your own pace with our flexpath learning format. Take one or two courses at a.

[Dwight Howard]

Time and complete as many as you can in a 12 week billing session.

[Unknown Host]

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[Unknown Guest]

A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.

[Unknown Host]

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[Dwight Howard]

Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton?

[Unknown Host]

And time just stands still.

[Dwight Howard]

Man, there's been so much. My life is been so like a whirlwind. You know, there's been times I'm like, man, I just want to travel and just get away from everything. But then, now I have my kids and before they turn 18 and get into the real world, what I just want to do now is really just put my energy and my effort into more so guiding them and kind of teaching them for the world that that's ahead. You know, I came into the NBA very green, you know, at 18, you know, I just. Nothing. I didn't know anything about finances. I didn't know anything about love, trust, money. None of these things were in the forefront of my head. Only thing I knew was go put the ball in the basket, make everybody smile, have a good time. But doing that for 20 years is like, hold up, you know, I love other things too. I have a farm. I like animals. I want to do this, that and the third. But now that basketball is coming to a close, it's like, man, I still have a long life ahead of me. You know, who is this person outside of the game that I played since I was 3? I want to find all of that person. So I've done things in my basketball career during my off time to kind of figure out who I am. I did a show called Special Forces with the military. Also did this Thing where I had to sit in the dark for three days. Sit in the cave. I did. This is one of the. Yeah, I sat in the dark for three days. No light in a cave. Kind of like spiritual awakening. But it was, it was pretty intense.

[Unknown Guest]

What made you want to join the Big Three? I feel like you're the most decorated, best player to ever join the Big Three. A lot of these guys are kind of like decent players, but not perennial all stars, MVP candidates, defensive player of the year. What made you want to join the Big Three?

[Dwight Howard]

I think that five on five. I kind of graduated from the five on five basketball school and want to take on a new challenge. And I'm still in shape. I love playing the game of basketball. I want to compete. You know, I have a good time and a lot of fans who may get a chance to see me in my younger years get a chance to see me play a little bit now before I'm actually done. Done.

[Unknown Host]

But also like, if somebody offers a contract, NBA, would you go back? You're done.

[Dwight Howard]

There's no need.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, so you're done. Got it.

[Dwight Howard]

I feel like it'll be too much of a waste of time because I don't think people really understand how we used to grind with this NBA as far as practice. Like I'm doing three A days even, you know, like there's times now where I do three A days and I'm only playing once a week half court. So I just saw this.

[Unknown Host]

Was Drexler really? Is he really the commissioner of three?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes. I just talked to him after the incident that you guys saw. He called me. He wasn't upset at all. We actually had a great conversation. And I really appreciate him because I grew up watching, you know, a little bit of his latter years when he was playing with Portland, I used to play with him on a video game. My dad used to talk about Clyde the Glide. Cause my dad got a bald head too. So anybody with a bald head. My dad is like, he Magic, Jordan, Clyde, guy named Deion Glover. Anybody with a ball. Deion Glover, of course he trains me. He's the guy who trained me in high school. I would wake up at 4 o' clock every morning, go to the track, then go to the school. Deion would train me every morning. Coming from the strip club to my school. I went to a Christian school. So they would be leaving the strip club smelling like Booty and Hennessy, coming up into this Christian school, working me out every morning.

[Unknown Host]

Wow, a Christian strip club.

[Dwight Howard]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, not a Christian strip club. That is wild.

[Unknown Host]

They start off with a prayer.

[Unknown Guest]

They start off on their knees, praying, and then they end up on their knees.

[Dwight Howard]

But though he would go to the Magic City, which was one of the most popular strip clubs in Atlanta, and him and Big Ant would leave the strip club because I would get up at 4 o' clock every morning religiously and train, go to the track. This before I got to the NBA, so the high school, I was doing this every day. Getting up at 4 in the morning, go to the track, I would run. Then I would go to the school and lift and work out with Deion Glover every day until I got drafted. That was my whole. I wanted to make sure I was prepared for the NBA.

[Unknown Host]

My man. So today, do you know Scott Storch?

[Dwight Howard]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

What do you. What do you think about when you think about Scott Storch?

[Dwight Howard]

Scott Storch, that's the guy who was doing.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, Dre, the beats, all that. Because Atlanta is a music.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, he's a December baby. He's a Sag like me.

[Unknown Host]

When is your baby?

[Dwight Howard]

Whenever I'm born, December 8th. Actually, my sign is the Ofuchus. People don't talk about this sign a lot. It's called opuchus is the 13th zodiac. It's called Ophiuchus. So we actually had 13 zodiacs, and it came from the Dendera. So the. Before it was called the zodiacs, where it's called the zodiac, it was called the Dendera, the African Dendera. We took it. We took one of the months off, which was the 13th, and we made it 12. And yeah, Ophiuchus is the one they call the. The medic or the. Not the one who breads knowledge, who bring the snake bearer. So if you look at the sign of the Ophiuchus, they bring wisdom or information. And that's my son, pb.

[Unknown Guest]

I bet you didn't see this coming. Ofuchus zodiac.

[Unknown Host]

Listen.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah. Egyptian. If you look on a caduceus up there to the left, Rob, look at the caduceus. It has the snakes that rise up. You know, you go to the medicine right there. You know, you go to the medicine.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

The medicine symbol is what? Caduceus? So the. The ophiuchus is the. The serpent bear. They bring in knowledge. Anytime you see the snakes, that. That represents medicine and stuff like that. So.

[Unknown Host]

So we just found out your zodiac sign is Ophiuchus. Your favorite character is Thanos.

[Dwight Howard]

All time favorite.

[Unknown Host]

All time favorite.

[Unknown Guest]

Who's a good guy. Allegedly.

[Unknown Host]

Michael Jordan's vertical leap is 42 inches. Okay. Michael's vertical leap is 42 inches.

[Unknown Guest]

Little Will.

[Unknown Host]

And we found that you don't believe.

[Dwight Howard]

Wilt had the 20,000 woman.

[Unknown Host]

That's no way.

[Dwight Howard]

It's. No. We just.

[Unknown Host]

We just learned a lot of stuff, man. But let me tell you, it's. It's a pleasure having you on, you know, talking to you. When I walked and I saw him like, dude, this guy's still in shape. You know, he's still like, he looks like NBA ready. Like, if they call right now, you could go and play with them.

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Sometimes you see players that they're done, they just get out of shape immediately.

[Dwight Howard]

I understand. It's like, shoot, now I can eat everything I want to eat. Let's go.

[Unknown Host]

But this was a blast having you on, brother. And maybe if we talk to Shaq and he agrees, maybe we do the podcast.

[Dwight Howard]

Let's do it again.

[Unknown Host]

He's down here as well. He'll come down. And what we may do is here on the court that we have right next door. I don't know. We'll see if maybe, you know, maybe.

[Dwight Howard]

We can play some one. I know we have the box. I have. You have the box and stuff in the there. So maybe we can put on the gloves.

[Unknown Host]

But the thing is, put on the gloves with Shaq.

[Dwight Howard]

I would, but I'm not letting him hit. You gotta. It's a lot of sticking and moving, cuz.

[Unknown Host]

Remember Shaq. Shaq, when he fought Barkley, he fought. He's a righty, but he swing with the left.

[Dwight Howard]

I'm like.

[Unknown Host]

He wanted to really throw.

[Unknown Guest]

Barkley connected, though.

[Dwight Howard]

He missed. He tried to throw a connect with.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

And then Barkley got up under it.

[Unknown Host]

That would have connected.

[Dwight Howard]

Yeah, if. If would do a lot of damage if. If connected.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Shaq didn't connect. He connected with Alvin Robertson, though. Rookie season. If he. You remember that?

[Dwight Howard]

Who?

[Unknown Host]

Alvin Robertson.

[Dwight Howard]

But he missed so many people. He missed what you call Brad Miller.

[Unknown Host]

Really call Brad Miller?

[Unknown Guest]

Yeah.

[Dwight Howard]

This is Brad.

[Unknown Host]

Like you would have never thought. Look at this left.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, and I tell you this, if you would have caught him with that left, it would have been over.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, it would have been bad, but good. Barkley's had plenty of fights in his career where I was just watching highlights the other day of Barkley. I'm like this.

[Unknown Guest]

He was incredible.

[Unknown Host]

So much things to watch, by the way.

[Dwight Howard]

Six, five. Why do they keep saying that?

[Unknown Guest]

Well, how tall do you think he is?

[Unknown Host]

Six, four.

[Dwight Howard]

Barkley is six seven. Six.

[Unknown Guest]

Really?

[Unknown Host]

Is he really six?

[Dwight Howard]

Seven? Yeah.

[Unknown Guest]

One thing I know for sure, since they've retired, Shaq and Barkley have not missed a meal.

[Dwight Howard]

Barkley is so funny.

[Unknown Guest]

No, no, Shaq is.

[Unknown Host]

Shaq is in shape. Shaq looks good. And Barkley actually recently lost a lot of weight.

[Dwight Howard]

He did.

[Unknown Host]

He lost a lot of weight, and he looks good as well. And that's good for him because.

[Dwight Howard]

Oh, zip.

[Unknown Host]

I. I do think. Oh, oh, Ozemp. Oh, you were doing the O'Reilly thing.

[Dwight Howard]

My name is Shaquille O' Neal.

[Unknown Guest]

I need you guys to get some old, more Ozempic for. I just saw that.

[Unknown Host]

But by the way, Charles has got to be one of the top 10 best personalities on TV.

[Unknown Guest]

Charles Barkley.

[Dwight Howard]

Listen, let me tell y' all something. My name is Charles Barkley, and I got one of the best personalities on Shaq. Look at here, Shaq. Now, listen, I'm here with Pat Davis, and I was talking to him about you getting on the show. If I can get you on the show, we'll get with the white Howard. I'm gonna get you some Dunkin Donuts. And it's round like a rim.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. One where Shaq gets up and goes out. He said, what are you doing? What are you doing, Shaq? I'll be back. What are you doing? And then he's got to go to the bathroom. His stomach's. Take some matches with you. These guys. Chuck is, like, so quick when he says stuff. Anyways, brother, this was great. Appreciate you for coming out.

[Unknown Guest]

Thank you.

[Unknown Host]

Looking forward to it. And if we get Shaq to want to come on, that'd be an interesting one to have here together.

[Unknown Guest]

I'll be on there.

[Dwight Howard]

Just make sure the money is right.

[Unknown Guest]

If the money is not right, me and Dwight will not go on the show. But, hey, if the money is right, I'll be there.

[Dwight Howard]

Make sure you have some nice, fine.

[Unknown Guest]

Women, because me and Dwight, we got.

[Dwight Howard]

A lot of kids together.

[Unknown Guest]

That's what I call a Superman. I have kids. He got kids. So if you bring some women in here, it might be some more. I'm just talking to me.

[Unknown Host]

I think you do that. We'll do the rest. Okay, take care, everybody. Bye. Bye, Bye, bye.

[Dwight Howard]

What's up, y' all? This your boy, Dwight Howard, AKA the Hall of fame, Superman in the building. If y' all want to connect with me, ask me any questions, just go to my nectar now, and I got all the answers for y' all. Yeah, I can tell you how many women? Wilt Chamberlain? No, that was just fake. But guess what? I got all the expertise. Basketball, chess, if you want to learn how to do Snapchat. If you want to learn to get that jump shot silky smooth like me. If you want the fresh fade with the nice hair, come check your boy out. We got expertise in a lot of areas, remember, but connect and connect. I'll see you all there. Peace.