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How the Lakers solved their chemical imbalance
The current Lakers may not be as good as the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant championship teams on the court, but they're much better in one respect: They actually like each other, and they just play.
Here are some things that did not happen after the Lakers lost Games 3 and 4 to the Jazz:
The star center didn't say he struggled because his teammates took bad shots, that the big dog had to get bones to guard the house and that the press knew what was going on but was afraid to write it.
The star guard didn't say he wanted to be traded or call the center a fat malingerer.
The coach didn't zing either of them or publish a tell-all book (yet).
None of the owners' kids went on talk radio to zing the coach or each other.
The star guard didn't go on talk radio to blast the owner, his kids or the general manager.
I could go on like this -- I haven't even alluded to Dennis Rodman, Nick Van Exel, Mr. and Mrs. Glen Rice, J.R. Rider, Smush Parker and Kwame Brown -- but you get the idea.
Forget your father's Lakers, these aren't even your Lakers.
The day Kobe Bryant got his MVP award -- a year after excoriating the organization and demanding to be traded -- he exclaimed, "It's Hollywood! It's a movie script!"
Indeed it was, right out of "Keystone Cops," in which everyone bopped everyone else over the head with their nightsticks and drove their cars into one another's.
Now there isn't an issue among the Lakers. Everyone know who's No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and so on down the line.
"It's a really easy team to work with as far as that goes," says Coach Phil Jackson.
"You know we have idiosyncrasies of Ronny [Turiaf], who's a little bit of a character. We have Sasha [Vujacic], who's our pampered player.
"They all have a role here [but] there's nobody you have to keep an eye on, askance."
Actually, Turiaf and Vujacic are an anthill compared to the Himalayan range they had with Shaq and Kobe.
Jackson once consulted a psychologist for advice on Bryant and another time asked a mediator how to chill out Shaq and Kobe.
The mediator said the Lakers should separate them so the team sent both home from practice -- whereupon Bryant had ESPN's Jim Gray go on the air and blast Shaq for him.
So much for professional advice.
"It was also because of a different generation that saw Kobe as a young upstart," Jackson says. "A lot of the guys sided with Shaq because of Kobe's youth.
"Now Kobe's the veteran and he's the guy that's looking over his shoulder saying, 'These kids, this next generation, they sure are pampered.' "
The star center didn't say he struggled because his teammates took bad shots, that the big dog had to get bones to guard the house and that the press knew what was going on but was afraid to write it.
The coach didn't zing either of them or publish a tell-all book (yet).
None of the owners' kids went on talk radio to zing the coach or each other.
The star guard didn't go on talk radio to blast the owner, his kids or the general manager.
I could go on like this -- I haven't even alluded to Dennis Rodman, Nick Van Exel, Mr. and Mrs. Glen Rice, J.R. Rider, Smush Parker and Kwame Brown -- but you get the idea.
Forget your father's Lakers, these aren't even your Lakers.
The day Kobe Bryant got his MVP award -- a year after excoriating the organization and demanding to be traded -- he exclaimed, "It's Hollywood! It's a movie script!"
Indeed it was, right out of "Keystone Cops," in which everyone bopped everyone else over the head with their nightsticks and drove their cars into one another's.
Now there isn't an issue among the Lakers. Everyone know who's No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and so on down the line.
"It's a really easy team to work with as far as that goes," says Coach Phil Jackson.
"You know we have idiosyncrasies of Ronny [Turiaf], who's a little bit of a character. We have Sasha [Vujacic], who's our pampered player.
"They all have a role here [but] there's nobody you have to keep an eye on, askance."
Actually, Turiaf and Vujacic are an anthill compared to the Himalayan range they had with Shaq and Kobe.
Jackson once consulted a psychologist for advice on Bryant and another time asked a mediator how to chill out Shaq and Kobe.
The mediator said the Lakers should separate them so the team sent both home from practice -- whereupon Bryant had ESPN's Jim Gray go on the air and blast Shaq for him.
So much for professional advice.
"It was also because of a different generation that saw Kobe as a young upstart," Jackson says. "A lot of the guys sided with Shaq because of Kobe's youth.
"Now Kobe's the veteran and he's the guy that's looking over his shoulder saying, 'These kids, this next generation, they sure are pampered.' "
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