He has climbed to the cusp of the championship by lifting the Orlando Magic into the NBA Finals against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, yet this will not be Dwight Howard’s first time this season holding up his hand and asking to “put a ring on it.”

No, not by demanding a trade for a better chance to win or delivering inspirational speeches to his teammates about championship rings.

On the Magic’s team plane, Howard will recruit the flight attendants to break into dance with him and stay in step as he channels Beyonce and mimics her best booty shakes in the music video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

That’s just who Howard is: a complete goofball who is a 6-foot-11 entertainment center when he’s not breaking backboards or being named NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Check out in his own words, written for an NBA.com blog, just how giddy he was after Orlando beat the Lakers at Staples Center back in January in what Howard called “like the funnest game.”

“After that game I was just so amped up, jumping up and down, just going nuts. I was so excited and felt like I could’ve played three more quarters. But we headed out for Denver and we got in there at like 5:30 in the morning and I’m STILL amped up about the game and I couldn’t sleep until like 8, 9 o’clock. And I’m trying to sleep but I kept thinking about the game and we had to play Denver that night. So come gametime I was just so tired and I’m trying to fight through it.”

That excerpt leaves out Howard calling it “a dream come true” to tour the Warner Brothers studio the day before and how his lactose intolerance cleared out the limo on the ride back to the team hotel.

Contrast all that youthful energy careening in all directions with Bryant’s all-revealing one-word reply to a question about whether winning this championship would mean more to him than his previous three NBA titles because he is the clear leader of this Lakers team:

“Probably.”

It is certainly a contrast when you look at the two superstars in these NBA Finals, Howard and Bryant, big and small, ages 23 and 30, one riding this wave beyond the playoffs’ second round for the first time and the other still smarting from dropping the gold ball last year in Boston.

Asked if Howard, a fellow starter on the gold-medal USA Basketball team last summer, is truly as goofy as it seems, Bryant said: “Probably more so, actually.”

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Then Bryant pivoted and changed direction with his answer in a way you wouldn’t expect.

“But he’s extremely competitive,” Bryant continued. “Everybody handles things differently. When he steps on that court, he competes. He might be laughing and joking around, but he’s a competitor.”

If Bryant says Howard is an extreme competitor, then it’s safe to say he is. The 40 points and 14 rebounds that eliminated LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night would also argue in that favor.

Truth be told, Bryant lets out his lighter side publicly more than ever – and not just through a puppet in a TV commercial, either. Just his two trips to Oklahoma City this season showed that, although neither was as funny as Bryant likening teammate DJ Mbenga to Sloth, the deformed character from the 1985 movie “Goonies.”

First trip in February: Bryant exits the locker room after the game to find a group of Thunder ballboys with a variety of memorabilia they’d love for him to sign.

Bryant signs a lot of stuff until one kid reluctantly submits a pair of Bryant’s first personal sneakers … made by adidas, with whom Bryant had a lot of issues before jumping to Nike. “I’m not going to sign those Nazi sneakers,” Bryant says, cracking up all the other ballboys who had told the kid so beforehand. (Bryant does ease off by telling the ballboy to bring something else next time the Lakers are in town and he’ll sign that.)

Second trip in March: Bryant is talking to some reporters after the game when — with two rounds of the NCAA tournament completed — a somewhat nervous local with too much Blake Griffin on the brain asks if Bryant filled out an NCAA tournament.

Bryant says, “No, I meant to and didn’t get around to it … and it’s a shame. I had every game right, too!” The reporter stands there in awed silence until it dawns on him that Bryant is screwing with him.

For the record, Bryant declares that James and Carmelo Anthony were “the two funniest guys” on the Olympic team, which might be the harshest form of insult one can make toward Howard.

James and Anthony are gone now, though, courtesy of Howard and Bryant … and the question is whether Howard (and his adidas endorsement) can fill James’ shoes as a worthy rival to Bryant in this series.

It’s hard to criticize what James did this season, but the net effect was this: Both Howard and Bryant outdid James in one area: preparing and allowing their teammates to be clutch in the postseason.

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James is obviously a willing passer. Even so, maybe he did too much for Cleveland all season long. There’s no doubting that the Cavaliers wound up overly dependent on James creating everything, and in fact no NBA MVP has led his team to the league championship in this team game in the past six years. (San Antonio’s Tim Duncan, not really a do-it-all type, was the last MVP to win in 2003.)

Howard sets the outer table for Orlando’s 3-point marksmen by being the focal point of his team’s offense early to draw in opposing defenses. His passing has improved dramatically in just the past year.

He certainly isn’t shy about speaking up, as seen by tying Bryant for the NBA playoff lead in technical fouls with five, two shy of an automatic one-game suspension.

Being a competitor is not enough. Having skilled teammates is not enough. Winning a championship requires an entire team lifting its competitive level to meet the moment. Given that, no matter how great Howard’s ability to overwhelm is, Bryant’s ability to orchestrate will resonate more.

This is about who laughs last, and this time it’ll be Bryant.

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