That Bryant Bandwagon Hits a Couple of Potholes

As spring follows winter, after Kobe-mania comes the anti-Kobe backlash.

Nobody rides for free, nobody gets it the way they want it. It happened to Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal and it’s happening to Kobe Bryant.

Karl Malone and Charles Barkley grumbled about the league- and network-sponsored coronation at the All-Star game and Bryant’s shot-happy response. George Karl, who coached the West, has since suggested it was because of veterans’ grumbling he didn’t put Bryant back in to shoot it out with Jordan for the MVP.

Malone said his problems started when he set a screen for Bryant, who waved him out of the way to go one-on-one.

“I went to set a pick and the guy told me he’s got it,” Malone said later. “Like I told Coach Karl, ‘Hey, when younger guys are telling me, ‘Get out of the way,’ that’s a game I don’t need to be in.’ I was [upset].”

Barkley, watching on TV, said the problem started earlier than that, when NBC began thumping Bryant’s tub.

“Jim Gray almost made me [sick] last week, talking about passing torches and that sort of thing,” Barkley said. “Kobe Bryant is a nice kid and he’s got a lot of talent. He’s not a great player. He’s exciting. . . .

“I was embarrassed. . . . I thought they already had passed that torch to Grant Hill three years ago.”

What can one say but . . . they’re right?

The hype, perhaps exaggerated in its New York setting, was almost hysterical, beyond anything seen before. Bryant was a relative innocent in the process, but he didn’t run away from it, as 11 shots in his first 13 touches, off the charts for going it alone, suggest.

For better and worse, it’s Bryant’s audacity that separates him from the others anointed to succeed you-know-who, only to prove they weren’t The One. Hill is too nice to thirst for domination. Penny Hardaway’s sensitive soul and frail body keep betraying him; he’s more like a great player’s friend, which is what he was in his best seasons alongside Shaq.

It’s no surprise they picked Bryant. They’re in sales and he’s a golden child, with more high-flying game than he or anyone can control. They exploited him, which is what they do. He went along, because he isn’t yet sure there’s anything he can’t do.

The problem for the Lakers is, the same process is sure to go on--or is going on--among them.

It was one thing for teammates to smile at Bryant’s excesses before the world became a beeline, zooming past them to fall to its knees before him. The end of that Seattle loss--Bryant missing a three-point shot with a defender all over him, overlooking an open Nick Van Exel, Van Exel punching the air in anger--may have been emblematic.

To his credit, Bryant seemed to rein himself in last week. In two games, he took 18 shots and had 11 assists. Before that, his average was 5.4 shots per assist.

Jordan inspired an actual veterans’ conspiracy in his first All-Star game, for nothing more than wearing his Nike warmups, reminding them he had a big endorsement deal when nobody else did. That was nothing compared to the laurels placed on the brow of the young Bryant. If the league had tried that at the ’85 game, Isiah Thomas and the guys might have kidnapped Jordan and held him for ransom.

The hype they have these days doesn’t just warp, it maims. No one wants to let this kid grow up, but everyone--league, networks, Laker players, Laker fans--will have to.

The path to the kind of greatness he aspires to is never, ever smooth and this was only one of the bumps.

SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING SOMETHING

This ain’t working.

When 10% of your league is traded in a week, and an additional 2% or so might have been if it hadn’t turned down deals, insulting some city where the local team is trying to make friends and sell tickets, something’s wrong.

David Stern’s complaint about the labor deal has centered on money. Since the contractually agreed-on split--48.2% to the players--has been surpassed, it’s a defensible argument.

However, the real damage to competitive balance and general harmony has been done by the three-years-and-stick-’em-up-or- I’m-outta-here rule that turns rookies into monsters.

Of the top 15 picks in the ’95 draft, 13 have been traded with two (Kevin Garnett, Bryant Reeves) signed for more money than they’re worth. You do the math.

Stern reportedly would like to make the three years five, or reinstate restricted free agency, giving teams the right to match offers. Both would be nice.

Unions are usually receptive to giving up the rights of future rookies, who aren’t currently union members. Of course, the players won’t do anything unless pushed and if Stern does, he risks losing a month or two of his season, or worse.

As unseemly as it would be, it would be worth it if they get a system in which all 29 teams can compete again, and there’s such a thing as manners.

POSTER CHILD FOR A DYSFUNCTIONAL TIME

It’s hard to remember Jerry Stackhouse before this league and corporations like Fila and Mountain Dew inflated his head to its current size.

He was a dazzling prospect in two years at North Carolina. He worked hard and improved. Dean Smith was said to be happy to see Rasheed Wallace go but hoped Stackhouse would stay.

Less than three years later, he’s on his second team, not much further along as a player. He was hoping to be traded again before signing his $10-million-a-year deal this summer.

Demoted by new Piston Coach Alvin Gentry, Stackhouse said he’d try coming off the bench but noted, “I’m not going to flourish in this role.”

What do you know, he was right. Last week, Gentry pulled him in a loss at San Antonio. An angry Stackhouse said hopefully he’d heard he might be traded. He has since said he’s fine, for the rest of the season, anyway, but notes he’d be better in a different system, like he thinks they play out West.

“My game fits an up-tempo style,” he said. “Right now, we are not exploiting that as much. We’re basically running half-court sets and pick and rolls.”

His game hasn’t fit anywhere since he left Chapel Hill. His head might not fit in all the Carolinas.

FACES AND FIGURES

Wherever you go, there you are: Shawn Kemp, known for midseason funks, is in another as the young Cleveland Cavaliers slide and he gets more questions about fouling out all the time. He currently leads the league in DQs; if he hangs on to it, he’ll be the first to lead the league four years in a row. “I’m relentlessly aggressive,” Kemp says. “With us being a young team and trying to go out and be aggressive and asserting myself, I’m going to pick up fouls. We’re not getting a lot of respect from the officials. I didn’t expect to at all. So that does not surprise me. It doesn’t bother me at all.” Comment: Doesn’t surprise me, either. . . . Oops: Maverick Coach/General Manager Don Nelson, perhaps awakening to the fact he made a horrible mistake trading Sam Cassell, Chris Gatling, et al., for Shawn Bradley, says he still hasn’t figured out how to use his center. On his radio show last week, Nelson raved about Michael Finley’s work ethic, adding, “Are you listening, Shawn?” Bradley recently went 11 games without taking double figures in rebounds. . . . Indiana Pacer Coach Larry Bird, on being taunted by Dennis Rodman during last week’s loss at Chicago: “I don’t listen to him. I knocked him on his butt when I played against him. And if I ever get the chance outside and it’s just me and him, I’d probably try to do it again.” . . . Bay Area Blues (cont.): Showing he hasn’t lost his gift for irritating players, P.J. Carlesimo angered his Warriors by calling a practice for the first day of the All-Star break. Bimbo Coles, team leader and stand-up guy in the last two, awful years, last week asked to be traded. “It’s a bad situation,” he said. “I know I’m not in their long-term plans, so I mean, why should I be here?” . . . Scottie Pippen, after reserves Scott Burrell and Toni Kukoc scored 24 and 21 points, respectively, against the Denver Nuggets; “Yeah, we’re getting good bench play against sorry teams.”