Nelson thinks highly of Bryant

The compliments flowed out of Golden State Coach Don Nelson’s mouth after he witnessed another performance by Kobe Bryant on Sunday night.

Nelson watched how Bryant shared the basketball, how he trusted his Lakers teammates, how he was willing to embolden them. And that impressed Nelson.

“He allows these guys to do their thing and be successful and encourages them,” Nelson said. “He makes them even better than they are by playing alongside of him. He truly makes everybody better when he’s on the floor with them.

“And you couldn’t say that five years ago. But now you can say it. That’s why he’s such a complete player. When coaches look at players, we look at them a little bit differently. Do they make their surrounding teammates better? The answer with him is yes, yes, yes.”

When told of Nelson’s comments, Bryant said he was flattered.

“That means a lot, because that’s always been a big knock toward my game,” Bryant said. “To hear that coming from him, it means a lot. It means I’m doing the right thing.”

Bryant had four assists in the Lakers’ win over the Warriors. He leads the Lakers in assists with 4.2 per game.

“I think my role changed so people looked for me to do that,” Bryant said. “When Shaq [O’Neal] was here, people think that he got a lot of easy baskets because he was Shaq. I was feeding all of those. It’s not something that’s new to me. I think just the perception of me having a different role has brought to the forefront what I’m doing for everybody else. It’s tough to say you made Shaq better. I just think on this team it gets a little more enhanced.”

Over the years, Bryant has evolved as a leader and a player.

“It’s because of the spotlight. ‘This is Kobe’s team,’ ” Bryant said. “So now everybody is looking at my leadership and what am I doing. The team we had before, I was still a leader. . . . It was more on the lower level, more undercover. Now, you have the spotlight, so people look at that.

“This is not something that’s new to me, to be honest. I think it’s just the attention that people paid to it is a lot greater now than it was then.”

Lakers take a break

The Lakers didn’t practice Monday and have today off before going back to work Wednesday. They don’t play again until Friday, against the Utah Jazz at Staples Center.

Unlike previous seasons, when Bryant and O’Neal were embroiled in their own bit of theater, the drama that surrounds the Lakers these days is the constant analysis of the team.

It comes from the media, from fans, and even at times from the Lakers. And the Lakers get the analysis even though they are 25-5.

“You know what it feels like now? It feels like everybody is kind of searching for something,” Bryant said. “Like searching for something to talk about. Cause Shaq’s not here, so me and Shaq smacking each other around, you can’t talk about that too much. So I think people kind of search for things. . . .

“They want to follow us. They want to see how we’re doing and what’s going on. It’s barbershop talk. But for us, we understand that it’s an evolution.”

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broderick.turner@latimes.com