As big as Kobe Bryant's ego might be, it's presumed that Kobe Bryant wouldn't ask Michael Jordan to defer to him. Nor Muhammad Ali. Or Nelson Mandela, for that matter.
Which lends more insight as to why Dwight Howard was unwilling to return to the Lakers after the 2012-13 season.
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Former Magic CEO Bob Vander Weide, who presided over the team when Howard guided the Magic to the 2009 NBA Finals, said he knew the moment when the franchise would not be able to retain the big man once he hit free agency, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
"When he told me he was an icon, guess what three names he used [to compare himself to]?" Vander Weide said to the Sentinel. "Michael Jordan. Muhammad Ali. Nelson Mandela."
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"Let's pause for a sec while we all do a faceplant," the Sentinel wrote.
"Are you kidding me?'" Vander Weide said. "We've been to the Finals once and you're a great athlete, and you're an icon like these three? I knew it was over. I knew there was no chance of keeping him."
Vander Weide left the Magic in 2011; Howard ventured to L.A. a year later, also presumably with the expectation of supplanting the Black Mamba as the Lakers' icon.
It didn't turn out the way Howard hoped. After a disastrous start, Los Angeles fired coach Mike Brown and bypassed Phil Jackson to hire Mike D'Antoni as Brown's replacement.
Bryant was credited with carrying an underachieving team to the playoffs before blowing out his Achilles' heel in the third-to-last regular-season game. The Lakers won their final two regular season games under the guidance of Pau Gasol and Howard but were swept in the first round of the playoffs at the hands of the Spurs.
When Howard re-entered free agency in the summer of 2013, rather than the Lakers promising him that they would pass Kobe's leadership torch to him, Bryant was head of the team's sales pitch, telling Howard he would teach the big man how to win.
He instead chose to join James Harden and the Rockets. He was humbled that the Rockets were able to earn the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference finals largely without him -- he suffered a knee injury that cost him much of the season, CBS Sports reported.
He deferred to Harden and has focused on making himself a defensive presence. But deferring was on his terms, not Bryant's.
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