Shaq, Kobe Form Sign of the Times

Shaq and Kobe, Kobe and Shaq, intertwined . . . forever?

So they are and have been, anyway, since arriving--together, of course--in 1996 after Jerry West beat everyone to this improbable package.

Five seasons later, they’re kings of all they survey--except each other. In the Lakers’ dual monarchy, the biggest problem isn’t the San Antonio Spurs or Portland Trail Blazers as much as reconciling Shaquille O’Neal, the game’s most dominating player, with Kobe Bryant, now emerging as its best player.

This is just superstars being superstars, the old one (who’s 28) and the young one (who’s 22 but knew he’d get here, he says, when he was 7.) This is where it has been headed since that wildest of all off-seasons.

The ’96 draft was thought to be a mere sideshow before the biggest free-agent bazaar the NBA would ever see. The Lakers were after the grand prize, the 24-year-old O’Neal, but the bidding wouldn’t start until Aug. 1.

In the meantime, as a favor to agent Arn Tellem, West worked out Bryant, then 17, just graduating from high school and widely viewed as in over his head.

At least, until people saw him.

West, then the Lakers’ executive vice president, said it was the greatest workout he had ever seen. Bill Fitch said the same thing when Bryant worked out for the Clippers. The Suns’ Danny Ainge was so blown away, he talked Jerry and Brian Colangelo into dropping their policy against drafting high school kids.

“He was by far the best workout we ever had in my four years of coaching,” Ainge says. “We were really biting at the bit to draft him with the 15th pick and I thought we had a shot, until draft morning when the Lakers traded Vlade Divac [to Charlotte for No. 13]. That’s a pretty big sacrifice, trading Vlade away for a 17-year-old kid. . . .

“We tried everything we could that day to get No. 12 from Golden State. . . . We were offering the 15th pick plus a future pick. So it was a pretty good deal. I mean, for Golden State, you move down three picks in the draft and get next year’s first draft pick.

“[Laughing] And they turned it down to draft Todd Fuller, OK?”

When Bryant went 13th, Ainge remembers saying to nobody in particular, “Oh my gosh, they’ve got Shaq and Kobe!”

Turned out, that was the easy part.

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Lakerdom went a little nutty last week when the New York Times reported an unnamed Western Conference player claimed Shaq was signaling teammates not to pass to Kobe.

If this was ridiculed by all concerned, it was sexy, close enough to real life--there have been problems-- and became a bombshell.

There’s an important lesson here. If the Lakers and especially Shaq and Kobe haven’t figured it out yet, this is the way it’s always going to be.

They comprise, not only the power center but the glamour duo in the glamour-starved NBA, and their relationship will be followed as if by paparazzi on scooters.

Not that news of a Shaq-Kobe problem was new. That goes back three seasons, in which O’Neal referred to Bryant as “Wonder Boy,” tangled with him at a 1999 practice and snarled at him after a game against Cleveland last January before they worked it out, won a title and jumped into each others’ arms.

Nor was this season’s third edition of the family, uh, sibling rivalry, news, either. It’s been in the papers since mid-November.

The hand-signal anecdote ran 13 paragraphs deep in a story. And everyone still found it and went crazy.

The bottom line is, Shaq and Kobe will either make it work and win more titles or they’ll hear about it. Even if they make it work, they had better win more titles or people will say they’re feuding again.

The truth is, they never feud. They rarely have even exchanged an unpleasant word, in fact. They say hi and talk. Each just goes his own way, the gregarious O’Neal and the fine-by-himself Bryant.

On the court, sometimes it flows . . . and sometimes it doesn’t.

O’Neal bristles when the ball goes up from the outside without having been inside first.

Not that he’s alone in this. Coach Phil Jackson zings Bryant for excesses. Even West, Kobe’s surrogate father in the organization, acknowledged his concern last season, in relief, after Bryant turned the corner.

“There are nights,” West said, “I would go home and say to myself, ‘My God, is he ever going to learn how to use his teammates better? Is he ever going to learn situations in games? Is he ever going to learn how important time is in a ball game? Is he ever going to learn to value the basketball?’ It used to bother me a lot. And I had a lot of talks with his agent. . . .

“I got frustrated also but I think outwardly--and particularly to the media--you really can’t [say] that. . . . Obviously, there was a player in that locker room that a lot of our players had a difficult time playing with. They had a hard time playing with Kobe, I don’t think there’s any question about that. . . .

“You sit there and think, ‘How in the world can this kid do this?’ But also the other factor was, the kid was 20 years old.”

Now Bryant is 22 and playing at a level even West didn’t think he’d see for a few more years.

On the other hand, if there’s a problem between O’Neal and Bryant, it isn’t because Bryant resents O’Neal or wants to ace him out.

Kobe isn’t in a competition with anyone but himself and Michael Jordan’s ghost. He’s just out there exploring his destiny, being Kobe.

Or as Bryant said early this season: “People tell me to turn it down. I haven’t even turned it up yet.”

Since then, he’s turned it up much higher. Now he’s leading the Lakers, as well as the NBA, in scoring.

This may be a problem for Shaq, who never has been anything but No. 1, capped by his championship season when he was most valuable player of the league, the finals and the All-Star game.

A few months later, O’Neal is co-No. 1 on his own team. That, as much as injuries, may explain Shaq’s drop-off in “passion” that Jackson noted last week.

As Shaq recently told Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen: “If you want the big dog to guard the big yard, you’ve got to give the big dog something to do. You’ve got to give him toys. You’ve got to feed him. You can’t have him sit and do nothing.”

For all the ego conflict, they fit nicely. Shaq can use someone to make big shots. Kobe can use a giant who owns the middle.

The world is theirs, assuming they figure out a way to share it.

That’s what they’re working on now, a kind of extended renegotiation, with teammates and everyone else waiting to see where they wind up, the winner’s circle or “Entertainment Tonight.”

FACES AND FIGURES

Kiss paradise goodbye: With the Philadelphia 76ers far ahead of the East, Coach Larry Brown raged at players after a loss to Dallas, prompting them to call a meeting and ask him to lighten up. Brown then took two days off while assistants ran practice, which George Lynch termed “a relief.” Then Brown cut Vernon Maxwell, Allen Iverson’s best friend on the team, infuriating Iverson--just before he suffered a shoulder injury in the 76ers’ fourth home loss in a row. . . . Orlando Magic officials are baffled by Grant Hill, whose surgically repaired ankle continues to improve--until he plays on it, leading Coach Doc Rivers to remark on the last trip, “I don’t know where we are on this now.” Now Hill will try to build his minutes slowly, but General Manager John Gabriel concedes, “It’s not an exact science.” . . . Darkest horse: Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders says the best rookie they’ve seen is Golden State’s Marc Jackson, a 6-foot-10, 270-pound center from Temple who was a second-round pick--in 1997. . . . Oops: Doing absolutely nothing for his reputation, Seattle’s Vin Baker performed in tights in a local ballet production of “The Nutcracker Suite.” A few nights later, he was ejected for roughing up Sacramento’s Chris Webber, who recently called him one of the league’s softest power forwards. “I’m not going to waste my breath saying his name,” Webber said. “He was insignificant. I only wish I could be as good an actor as he was in the ‘Nutcracker.’ ”