It’s a Good Thing for Him That Kobe’s Not All Talk

Recently Kobe Bryant was talking about his new love affair with Shaquille O’Neal and how it was bigger than the game itself.

Then Bryant scored 81 points, he explained, because he just wanted the “W.”

Later he said, “We had a stretch earlier this season where I didn’t have to score the ball like that for us to win. I look forward to going back to that.”

In an interview with Fred Roggin on 1540, he said, “I just try to be an inspiration to our youth.”

If this continues, my poor granddaughter is going to think she’s going to go through life with her G.P.’s hands covering her ears to keep her from hearing such nonsense at a tender age.

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NO QUESTION, Kobe Bryant is fun to watch, but listening to him talk, it’s a reminder of what happens when you mix together a dash of immaturity, an unchecked ego and a politically correct desire to orchestrate one’s own image.

“Do you like Kobe Bryant?” the ESPN.com quiz began Wednesday morning, and based on the results, 46.1% voted “no,” 45% “yes,” and another 8.9% had no opinion, which all together is unbelievable given his talent to excite sports fans.

The survey asked the question, “What do you feel was Bryant’s primary motivation for joining the World Championship and Olympic teams?”

Interest in representing the U.S. and reclaiming titles drew 41% of the vote, while an astounding 59% suggested his interest was “in doing what he thinks will help his public image.”

That tells me people are listening to Bryant when he talks, and shaking their head in disbelief when he says he’s only going after the “W,” when he says he’s all about championships, and when he says he’s looking forward to a time again when he won’t have to score a lot.

The survey results suggest people love to see his athletic arrogance at work on the court, but when it continues to be displayed off the court, it becomes a turn-off.

It’d be nice, as some have suggested, if we could sit back and just enjoy the gift that allows someone to score 81 points, but then he has to open his mouth and tell us what he thinks we want to hear.

“I just try to be an inspiration to our youth,” he told Roggin. “Not to be perfect or to do everything by the book or try to please everybody, just to be yourself. You go through life’s trials and tribulations and just try to grow as a person and you just try to learn from them. You just try to be who you are and try to be better than the person that you were yesterday.

“That’s what I stand for and that’s what I try to do and that’s how I try to inspire youth.”

Kobe Bryant, the role model? No thanks. Just play basketball. Score a ton of points, aggravate Phil Jackson, score some more, and give the granddaughter a break, and just shut up.

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I WENT to Staples Center on Wednesday night to catch the Clippers’ act; you never know when Chris Wilcox is going to go off for 82 points.

The Clippers had been that close to landing Ron Artest, thereby providing Page 2 with an unlimited amount of good fun. But now the big goon is going to Sacramento, and the way I see it, the Kings are going to make the playoffs, knocking out either the Clippers or the Lakers.

“I hope you’re right, and it’s the Lakers,” Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy said.

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“FASTEN YOUR seat belts,” I’ve been asked to join Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith during the second quarter of Saturday’s Channel 5 broadcast of the Clippers’ game with Denver, a great chance to make fun of Donald Sterling, Wilcox & Co., and at the same time find out if Lawler has a mute button at his disposal. I can’t imagine him doing all those Clipper games with Bill Walton and not having one.

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FROM WHAT I understand, if Michelle Kwan impresses the figure skating judges behind closed doors Friday, we’ll see a puff of white smoke rising above the East West Ice Palace in Artesia.

If she falls on her keester, of course, you’d expect to see black smoke, but because this is all being done out of sight of the public and the media, I’ve got a feeling she could slide from one end of the ice to the other on her fanny and still compete for the U.S.A. in the Winter Olympics.

Obviously, it’s really important that Kwan compete for the U.S.A. because she’s cute, assures mega-TV ratings for NBC, which is doing 418 hours of coverage and without Kwan that’s 418 hours of curling and the biathlon, and because she’s featured in Coca-Cola’s “Live Olympics” campaign.

How would it look if her chances of winning a gold were dead before the Games began?

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A NUMBER of his friends e-mailed right away, upset that the Dodgers had without explanation dismissed equipment manager Dave (Bones) Dickinson, 15 years on the job and 10 days away from leaving for spring training.

“Working for the Dodgers was my life,” he said. “I gave up the chance for a family, wife and kids; this was it. You go to spring training for two months, travel on the road all the time, wake up, go to the ballpark and come home about 1 and get ready to do it all over again. And I loved it.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Tarek Hallak:

“Go Kobe Bryant! You call yourself a L.A. columnist. You are a close-minded, sick (donkey) who has no life, bashes other superstars and (you don’t) have the guts to tell them to their faces.”

But they’re so big and tall.