In Bryant’s Case, the Show Really Goes On

Love him or hate him, it was always that way and if it wasn’t already, he made sure it would be.

For Kobe Bryant, who put the “star” in “star-crossed,” it has been a remarkable season, though, even if it turns out to be less than he hopes, or lives, for.

The first round of the playoffs is where his season used to start, not end. If the Lakers are unhappy that things aren’t the way they were, imagine Bryant, who was 18 when he arrived and 26 before he found out there was some other way.

Of course, Laker fans have one thing no one else has ever had:

Him.

There might have been a better player or two, but there was never a high-wire act such as this, with his daring and surreal repertoire. General Manager Mitch Kupchak recently mused, “I hope people appreciate how good this guy is.”

Indeed, it’s a privilege you have to remind yourself to enjoy. When you see Bryant all the time, that fadeaway three-pointer he makes after going up without his feet under him and scissor-kicking to get it there isn’t unbelievable at all.

Scoring 40 or 50 is no biggie. It takes 62 in three quarters or 81 with the rest of the league calling and text-messaging each other to turn on their TVs.

“He’s a joy to watch,” says Jerry West, Memphis president and Laker icon. “I still watch their games. Why would I watch? I watch to see him play....

“He does things that most players couldn’t do. He makes them look routine. It doesn’t take my breath away anymore. I’ve seen it so much, but it’s just routine now, and when you go there, very much like a Michael Jordan, you’re always expecting something fabulous to happen. And he doesn’t disappoint a whole lot, I don’t think....

“It’s a treat for the fans. They have a genius playing for them.”

The fans would take less artistry and more wins, but so would Bryant. Now the Lakers’ oldest starter, it looks as if he has been marooned here. Forget about putting a development team into Staples, this one’s close enough.

The Lakers are playoff-bound, an important step if only the first of many. Now, even for people who didn’t like Bryant’s naked ego long before he got in trouble, there’s no mistaking his greatness.

Unfortunately, there’s no going back to a simpler time. Bryant has regained his trademark poise, which is good because he can’t just let everything go. As hard as this looks, it’s harder. At 18, he was cloistered within his family and merely wary of outsiders; now he’s angry, and it runs deep.

Book or no book, the return of Phil Jackson, who restored a measure of respectability, was a gift. Nevertheless, Bryant’s description of their relationship to The Times’ Mike Bresnahan -- “We understood one another extremely well from a basketball standpoint. The important thing for us was to put it behind us, move on, and accept this challenge we have in front of us” -- suggests professionalism more than forgiveness.

Whatever his faults, Bryant was always the most professional, the strongest-willed and most compartmentalized. He has a smooth working relationship with Jackson and is praised as a leader by people in the organization who weren’t saying that a year ago.

Similarly, Bryant is dealing graciously with media after having withdrawn in previous seasons but that’s professionalism too, and only goes so far.

His sense of privacy that was always unrealistic -- he was angry about a short story in the Orange County Register reporting his 2002 marriage -- is even more dramatic.

Once thick-skinned and sure of his destiny, he now regards the media as a giant supermarket tabloid.

Since any profile or question-and-answer interview includes allusions to Colorado, the Laker breakup and his fall from grace (Sports Illustrated just reported his negative Q ratings put him “in the company of Vince McMahon, Robert Blake and even Barry Bonds”), the whole exercise is fraught with peril.

Bryant set out to go beyond Jordan, not Allen Iverson, but here he is, an outlaw icon. After all those years without “street cred,” Dime Magazine, a voice of the hip-hop generation, just put Bryant on its cover. His jersey is the NBA’s No. 4 seller, behind Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Iverson but ahead of Shaquille O’Neal, Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.

Not that Bryant was ever cut out to be all things to all people, as was Jordan.

Aside from his other gifts, Jordan was sensitive to what people thought and devoted to maintaining an image he always feared he could lose.

Bryant arrived younger with no fear, patience or need to fit in. John Celestand, his teammate for one season here, was a freshman at Villanova when he met Bryant, then 17, in the Wildcat dressing room. Villanova was recruiting him, but Bryant blithely informed the Wildcats that he’d probably go straight to the pros.

“We laughed that night back in our dormitory,” Celestand wrote in Pro Basketball News. “We took turns asking each other, ‘Who does this kid think he is? What is he smoking?’

” ... Maybe we were laughing at the fact he would play his high school playoff games in our gym and sell it out -- when sometimes we couldn’t. Maybe we were laughing at the fact he would show up on our campus at the parties we threw -- and some people thought he was the host.

“One thing is for sure: Kobe Bryant believed he was Superman. He believed he could accomplish anything.”

In fact, Bryant accomplished a great deal but “anything” is a tall order.

Bryant has enough money to make it without endorsements. The Lakers don’t need him to be adored, just to last until they can sign big-ticket reinforcements ... in 2008. He says he intends to make it happen sooner but then, he would.

In any case, remember to take a good look. This show isn’t playing anywhere else.

Faces and Figures

Portland’s Darius Miles, who arrived as a teenager in 2000 and hasn’t grown out of it yet, tired of sitting on the bench in Wednesday’s game against the Clippers while fans chanted “We Want Darius!” He changed into a suit at halftime and was seen on the bench. Coach Nate McMillan then sent him home from the trip.

Owner Paul Allen’s intercession reportedly kept Miles from being traded to the New York Knicks this season. Nothing is expected to keep Darius there this summer.

Also to be determined is the fate of GM John Nash, who trimmed $40 million from the payroll but was hired before McMillan, whose five-year, $27.5-million deal makes him de facto boss.

“We talk some, not a lot,” McMillan says. “My relationship in Seattle [with GM Rick Sund] was a little different than here. The GM and coach have to be close and talking a lot.”

Of course, the first thing they have to find out is whether Allen sells the team.

Toronto brass is alarmed by free agent Mike James, a linchpin in their efforts to extend Chris Bosh’s stay.

James keeps running his mouth and firing at will, noting that suitors checking him out will see, “I’ve been jackin’ my whole career.”

A source close to the team told the Toronto Globe and Mail, “He scares the stuffing out of me right now. Everything that comes out of his mouth lately, it’s all about him.”

When you put it that way: Houston’s Stromile Swift discounted criticism, noting, “Guys that say things like that, most of them are cowards. Most would never say things to your face.”

Then again ... Said Coach Jeff Van Gundy of Swift: “It’s been a career-long quest to find a game and intensity level and focus so that the word ‘potential’ is not always used in the sentence with him and he can reach some kind of consistency. It hasn’t happened for him yet, but that doesn’t preclude it from happening.”

Latest from the Black Hole of Manhattan: The Celtics yukked it up after a 123-98 rout of the Knicks, with Boston Coach Doc Rivers quoting Raef LaFrentz as saying they “might be the worst team ever.”

Coach Larry Brown recalled it last week for his players, who drilled the Celtics, 101-86.

Said Steve Francis: “You won’t catch us saying that about another team or any other players.”

Comment: Good thinking.

Then Stephon Marbury reopened his feud with Brown, saying he’d go back to shooting, or as he put it, “play like Starbury.”

Said Marbury: “I don’t care what he wants to hear. I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”

During the ensuing game in Cleveland, Brown was taken off on a stretcher and hospitalized overnight because of a stomach ailment.

Dallas Coach Avery Johnson, after a Mavericks’ loss at Golden State derailed their pursuit of San Antonio: “We need to give Mark Cuban a rebate.... If he wants to garnish our checks, we shouldn’t stop him from doing it.”

Replied Cuban: “I’ll take it.”

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Highest-scoring seasons by a Laker (by points):

*--* Pts. Player Season Avg. 2,754 Kobe Bryant 2005-06 35.3 2,719 Elgin Baylor 1962-63 34.0 2,538 Elgin Baylor 1960-61 34.8 2,476 Jerry West 1965-66 31.3 2,461 Kobe Bryant 2002-03 30.0 2,344 Shaquille O’Neal 1999-00 29.7 2,310 Jerry West 1961-62 30.8 2,309 Jerry West 1969-70 31.2 2,275 K. Abdul-Jabbar 1975-76 27.7 2,152 K. Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77 26.2

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Note: Baylor holds Laker record for average in a season, 38.3 in 1961-62 (48 games)

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Making their points

In NBA history, 98 players have topped the 50-point mark in a game at least once. Kobe Bryant did it for the 11th time in a victory against Portland on Friday and in the process became the Lakers’ all-time leader in points scored in a season:

Players with the most 50-point games:

*--* Wilt Chamberlain 105 Michael Jordan 30 Elgin Baylor 14 Rick Barry 13 Kobe Bryant 11 Allen Iverson 10 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 8 Bernard King 8 Dominique Wilkins 7 Adrian Dantley 6 Pete Maravich 6 Bob Pettit 6

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