It's no secret that Dwight Howard's first stint with the Los Angeles Lakers was a complete disaster. As it turns out, the late, great Kobe Bryant knew early on that his team-up with Howards simply wasn't going to work on. Apparently, Kobe knew as soon as they first talked on the phone.

In a recent appearance on ESPN, Jalen Rose shared the exact moment Kobe realized that their Lakers partnership was bound for failure:

“I was standing right next to him at his camp when he first talked to Dwight Howard,” Rose said, via Orlando Silva of Fadeaway World. “And I'mma say this now because they made amends. I've never said this before. When he got on the phone with Dwight Howard, because I know what that conversation was. I was right there and Dwight was excited; he was asking him about L.A. He was asking him about how he was going to help him, make him better; he asked him off the court, he asked about everything.”

As it turns out, Dwight did not ask the right questions. Howard's line of questioning clearly did not sit well with Kobe, and he knew right there and then that the big man's spell with the Lakers was not going to work out:

“After he asked all of those questions, you know what Kobe said? I'mma show you mofo how to get championships,” Rose continued. “What do you think about that? He got off the phone with Dwight Howard and said, ‘his head ain't in the right place. This ain't gonna work.' And, it didn't work.”

Call it prophetic or simply a keen sense of the mindset needed to succeed in the NBA, but Bryant instantly knew that Howard wasn't going to win a title in LA. Fortunately for Howard, he redeemed his failed first spell with the Lakers by helping win the 2020 title.