Bryant Finally Able to Come In From the Cold

No, really, for one of those old-time, generic All-Star weekends, it was OK.

Even the dunk contest was good, with 5-foot-9 Nate Robinson vaulting over his tyke forerunner, Spud Webb, at least until the judges got carried away and gave the nod to Robinson, who needed 14 tries for his winning jam, over spectacular Andre Iguodala.

The game was competitive. No one got hurt. What else is there to say but ... Viva, Las Vegas!

And now for the Meaning of It All:

Once again, the event seemed to be primarily about Kobe Bryant, but this one marked his return rather than his fall.

At the 2004 media session, a Laker publicist announced, “Basketball questions only!” In 2005, with the legal case gone but Bryant more isolated within the game than ever, he was a pincushion for Shaquille O’Neal, who delighted in pretending he didn’t know his name.

This time, Bryant was one of the guys -- or the foremost of them. Even O’Neal, who’d been silent on Bryant’s 81-point game, was obliged to say it was “fantastic.”

The biggest crowd at the media session gathered around Bryant while the other players were asked about his exploits.

Said Kevin Garnett, when asked who he thought might ever get 100: “I don’t know. Ask Kob.”

“Kob” is an old Bryant nickname from the people closest to him, as when he got 62 in three quarters against Dallas and Tracy McGrady remarked, “Way to go, Kob.”

Bryant and McGrady have been friendly for years, but when Bryant was arrested, McGrady didn’t come to his aid, going public with his own rebuke.

The thaw wasn’t lost on Bryant. “I’m starting phase two of my career,” he said at a party marking the long-deferred launch of his sneaker. “I’ve already lived once.”

For the Lakers, who went into eclipse with Bryant, his rebirth is as welcome as the sunrise. It’s no less important to the league, which needs a superstar to separate himself from the mere stars.

“I was at the World Economic Conference in Davos, [Switzerland], and people were talking about his 81,” Commissioner David Stern said. “Do I think he’d get to 100?

“But that was last month. The question is, are they [Lakers] a .500 team and will they get to the playoffs? Because if you don’t win and you don’t make the playoffs, people forget how good you might be.”

Unfortunately for the Lakers and the league, even in a best-case scenario they’re not much more than a .500 team, can’t get home court in the playoffs and are a longshot to go deep in them.

Locally, of course, this remains a bitter pill to swallow ... so no one is swallowing.

Bryant, asked whether he could hold up until they have cap space in 2007, said he and Phil Jackson “feel like we’re not that far away, one piece, two pieces maybe,” adding, “The vision that we have for the team may be a little different than the direction other people see us going in.”

Meanwhile, Jackson told The Times, “We just don’t abide the thought” of not making the playoffs and, being Phil, joked about the unthinkable (“We’ll spin the dial and say, ‘Hey, we’re lucky, we’re going to get in the lottery and we’ll try to make some chicken salad out of it all.’ ”)

Bryant and Jackson have to believe in something closer than 2007. However, the Lakers’ current vision depends on Lamar Odom and remains blurry.

The problem is not their lesser players; Chris Mihm, Smush Parker, Brian Cook and Sasha Vujacic are putting up the best numbers of their careers.

The problem is the players they counted on. Kwame Brown’s huge body is as useful as we saw Friday when it was removed from the path of Elton Brand, who flattened Cook. However, as far as being a front-line player, Brown’s bad hands, lack of explosion and dearth of a clue make him a writeoff.

That leaves Odom, who has more in him but has worn out everyone in the Laker organization waiting for him to contribute it on a nightly basis.

Either by coincidence or because he could hear the sound of a jet warming up with a seat reserved for him on it, Odom came out of the break with 20 points against Portland and 19 against Sacramento. Aside from Jan. 1-3, when Bryant was suspended, it was Odom’s best two-game total in almost three months.

The Lakers won both games, toying with Sacramento in what was supposed to be a showdown for the No. 8 playoff seeding in the West, as Bryant, who makes the game look like child’s play when the opponent can’t point three defenders at him, torched Ron Artest.

However, the question isn’t whether Odom can do it -- even in the NBA they don’t pay you $11.5 million if you can’t -- but whether he can keep doing it.

Sure enough, he played badly against the Clippers but that happens to everyone. The problem is, he went back down to 12 shot attempts.

The Lakers remained adamant in their commitment through January, passing up a chance to get Artest. However, if New York Knick President Isiah Thomas had put Channing Frye on the table last week, Odom would be on the East Coast right now.

The real problem is, until one or two of those missing pieces arrive, expectations -- internal and external -- dwarf anything the Lakers are capable of.

Making the playoffs sounded OK after last season’s No. 11 finish, but now that they’re No. 8, it doesn’t cut much ice. Nor will No. 7, 6 or 5 if they’re out in the first round.

More is required in Lakerdom, but chicken salad isn’t on the menu yet.

Faces and Figures

Then there were the Knicks, who always do something and got Steve Francis. Pundits had a field day with the new Francis-Stephon Marbury backcourt, but Francis is better than is remembered and other players might even try with the deadline past. Fueling the unrest, two of the league’s best talkers, Malik Rose and Maurice Taylor, dangled for weeks.... The Knicks’ real problem, as usual, is managerial chaos. Thomas and Larry Brown, old friends, are pitted against each other to see who survives. Thomas is getting pounded in the media, which pounded Scott Layden before him for trying to rebuild on the fly, a folly encouraged by corporate boss James Dolan. Knick fan Spike Lee once called for them to back up the truck and start over, but no one in power ever has.... In a plot twist, Thomas still has the support of Dolan, who has a long history of ignoring the fans, the media and his own record of futility and dislikes Brown’s swing-from-the-heels candor. Insiders now even speculate Dolan may buy out Brown after the season.... I like to wait until season’s end to acknowledge my worst calls, which don’t seem as bad then, but I’m obliged to report a friend recently came by to remind me that since I wrote the Knicks were finally getting somewhere, they had won only one game. Since I wrote that four weeks before, it was a little embarrassing.

Real action is expected in summer, when Allen Iverson and Paul Pierce figure to be available. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported 76er board Chairman Ed Snider signed off on trading Iverson and General Manager Billy King discussed a deal with Denver for reserves and expiring contracts.... On behalf of already besieged Coach Maurice Cheeks, thanks a lot.... Some homecoming: Orlando not only waived Penny Hardaway as soon as it acquired his expiring contract, it had fun doing it. In 1996, Hardaway led the revolt that cost Coach Brian Hill the job he got back this season.... Meanwhile, a Magic official told the Orlando Sentinel the team may offer Grant Hill, who has one season left, a buyout, noting, “I’m not sure Grant would want to be a part of the way this is going to go.” ... Then there was new center Darko Milicic, who ripped the Pistons (“I came here to play basketball. I didn’t come to watch. I could have watched the games on TV.”) before playing four minutes in his debut, which was also on TV....

New Phoenix owner Robert Sarver, who has dressed up as a chicken and a gorilla, cleared the stage for more of him by pointing GM Bryan Colangelo, the reigning executive of the year, to the door, nixing an extension and giving him permission to talk to Toronto. “At its roots, this is about Sarver’s look-at-me quest for respect and glory,” wrote the Arizona Republic’s Dan Bickley. “This is about ... ushering out a surname that is still looming on the marquee.”