Kobe Bryant's competitive nature, not any animosity, led him to unfollow former Los Angeles Lakers teammate Dwight Howard, Bryant tweeted Monday night.
Shortly after media reports surfaced that Howard was leaving the Lakers for the Houston Rockets, Bryant seemed to make a statement when he stopped following Howard on his Twitter account. Bryant also posted a picture on his Instagram account of him and teammate Pau Gasol.
Bryant, however, denied that his decision to drop Howard from his social media circle was personal.
His tweet read, "I wish d12 the best honestly. I just find it hard to follow players that wanna kick my teams ass #thatsjustme(.)"
Bryant reportedly turned off Howard with his sales pitch when the Lakers were trying to convince Howard to remain a Laker. According to several media accounts, Bryant said he could teach Howard how to win.
Howard, however, said the media reports were wrong about what Bryant had said, though he did not bother to talk about what Bryant did say to him.
Despite, Bryant's explanation via tweet, USA Today sounded skeptical that Bryant's dropping of Howard wasn't personal.
"Nope, nothing personal at all," it said. "The fact that Howard's decision to leave the Lakers more or less took them out of playoff contention had absolutely nothing to do with it at all. Needless to say, he will also unfollow Antawn Jamison and Metta World Peace when they land with new teams later this summer.
Bryant follows 817 people on Twitter. Only a handful of them are current NBA players, and of those, only two aren't current or former Lakers. Those two players are Jason Collins and Anderson Varejao. Which is totally random."
Bryant is recovering from surgery to repair a torn Achilles' heel, and his status for the 2013-14 season opener remains up in the air.
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