Champing at the Bit

Well, nobody said it was going to be easy . . . or fun . . . or quiet.

For the Lakers, it was one of those unforgettable seasons when the big guys feuded, gossip spread like wildfire, the beat writers had to monitor “60 Minutes II” and “The Tonight Show” and Jay Leno asked Phil Jackson if he wanted to announce a trade for Kobe Bryant on the air.

Leno was kidding, but, showing what kind of season this was--it imitated comedy, not art--the media were soon asking about a trade in earnest, obliging Jackson to deny it.

It was also reported--seriously--that Jackson had been lured onto the rocks by the house siren, Jeanie Buss, and was too distracted to sit Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal down; that Jackson not only wanted Bryant out, but that the team was exploring trades (to Toronto for Vince Carter and Antonio Davis, Phoenix for Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion, and Orlando for Tracy McGrady and Mike Miller); that Bryant would demand to be traded and, presumably on his way out of town, would sue Jackson for slander.

If these seemed more like throwaway lines from people venting, there was a lot of unrest behind the scenes, suggesting something new in this once-tranquil family-style organization.

The Laker franchise was dividing along the Shaq-Kobe fault.

“I definitely think it has put a strain on the organization,” minority owner Magic Johnson said recently. “You never want an organization or a team to seem like it’s divided, or guys jumping on sides and things like that.

“Our whole organization has been built on the fact that we’ve always taken care of our own. We’ve never aired our dirty laundry. We’ve taken care of it in-house.

“Because now it’s more than Kobe and Shaq. It’s much more than that. Now instead of focusing on basketball, we’re focusing on issues outside of basketball. And I think that’s taken a toll on the team, on the management. . . .

“We’ve been putting out so many fires, we’ve become firemen now, instead of being management.”

It remains to be seen if the fires are out. Johnson insists, as General Manager Mitch Kupchak has all season, that Bryant won’t be traded. Even if all the principals were to line up in favor, if Kobe asked out, Jackson wanted him out and Shaq agreed, Johnson says Kobe’s staying.

“He’s not going to get traded,” says Johnson. “Just point blank. Enough said.”

Beyond Bryant’s importance to the team, which is considerable because he and O’Neal remain the game’s top 1-2 punch, Kobe has huge marketing impact, embodying owner Jerry Buss’ vision of Laker style. Kobe and Shaq have had a rocky season, but upper management has never had the slightest intention of splitting them up.

Nor does Bryant plan to ask out, despite weeks of speculation to that effect.

“There’s no way,” says his agent, Arn Tellem. “Kobe wants to be a Laker, remain a Laker and finish his career as a Laker.”

As often as Jackson muses he’s the wrong coach for this team, intimates say he won’t walk away from one this good, not to mention $6 million per annum.

Nor is Shaq going back to Orlando. That was February’s story, so long ago and so laughable, it almost seems like the good old days.

This is the Laker version of “Rocky” or “Star Trek.” No matter how bad things look for Rocky and Adrian, Kirk and Spock or Phil, Shaq and Kobe, the smart money is always on the sequel.

The Golden Child Discovers Adulthood

In March, Lakerdom was ablaze with rumors: Jackson and Bryant were on the outs. Kobe wanted out.

Bryant was suffering one injury after another--to his shoulders, his ankles, and especially his feelings.

He had been all over the lot. He started the season with MVP ambitions flying in the breeze like banners. It took weeks to mellow him out, but by January, it had happened. He was playing the best ball of his life (Jackson agrees) and leading the NBA in scoring. Several opposing coaches called him the game’s best all-around player.

“He’s got a level of commitment to his game and to wanting to be the best that few guys have,” Phoenix Sun Coach Scott Skiles said. “Nobody on our team has that commitment, that’s for sure.”

Bryant had talked to ESPN the Magazine’s Ric Bucher about leaving. Now, however, as the publication date neared, Kobe not only recanted, he warned his teammates about the piece, trying to minimize its impact.

Nevertheless, Shaq, then clanging free throws and only starting to get in shape, got upset and stayed upset, zinging Bryant in the press all January.

By February, Bryant had taken a lot. Even as he heard stories of O’Neal trying to get him traded for Kidd, he acted as if nothing was wrong. At the All-Star game, Kobe sat next to Shaq on the bench, laughing it up. West teammate Antonio McDyess said that Shaq-Kobe stuff must be wrong.

But Bryant wasn’t as healthy by then, or as happy, or playing as unselfishly.

With O’Neal back from his own injury and still zinging away, Bryant and Jackson had several sharp exchanges on the post-All-Star trip, in Philadelphia after a loss, in Charlotte on a day off and on the bench the next night.

In March came a rumor of another run-in--Jackson denies this one--before Bryant sat out two games because of a virus.

Then came Jackson’s slip-up with Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times. Jackson often opens up to confidants, assuming they know when he’s off the record. Now he was quoted, describing a private conversation with Bryant and, worse, passing on a story about Kobe “sabotaging” high school games to make them interesting.

To Bryant, who’d never been stung in this manner, this was more than criticism, it was betrayal.

Inevitably, Jerry West became involved.

West, as a consultant, has no part in decision making. Mostly, he just answered his phone.

Nor is West a Kobe Guy, as opposed to a Shaq Guy. As much as he marveled at his wunderkind, West praised Jackson last spring for establishing a hierarchy with O’Neal as No. 1.

“Obviously,” West said last spring, “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.”

When West unexpectedly resigned as executive vice president last summer, just as the team he’d assembled came together, you could argue it wasn’t because of Jackson. West had been stressed for years and had almost left before.

Others who know West say Jackson’s presence was a problem for him. Of special concern to West was Jackson’s budding relationship with the owner’s daughter.

With West, it’s never simple, because he’s usually of two minds, at least.

Jerry could like Phil, appreciate the job he did, marvel at his reassuring poise--these are all things West said--and at the same time be tortured by fears of Jackson taking over the organization.

For whatever reason, West was suddenly gone, and happy in retirement, when the Shaq-Kobe rift reappeared. As in another sequel, “Godfather III,” they drew Jerry back in.

West is close to Tellem. Their families socialize. They’ve done a lot of business, including bringing Bryant here.

Inevitably, they talked. Just as inevitably, the press tapped in, the stories came out and the controversy whirled that much faster.

Of course, a season like this makes a man glad he got out when he did.

“I don’t have anything to do with it, at all, OK?” West says amiably.

“I’ve kept my distance, period, OK? I’ve kept my distance. I think the most important thing is for everybody to get on the same page and forget about any little things that are insignificant.”

You can ask the men who are still in, that would be nice.

Phil & Jeanie & Shaq & Kobe

This was the late-season rally they’d been hoping for?

Last week, the Lakers came off the road, where they had just gone 4-0, while the nation’s press mapped out their presumed dismemberment.

A day after the team played in Chicago, the Tribune’s Sam Smith listed trade scenarios for Bryant, adding, “There have been some preliminary explorations and three potential deals [with the Raptors, Suns and Magic] have surfaced.”

A Web site, https://nbatalk.com, reminded visitors it owned this scoop, having “first proposed the Kobe Bryant-for-Vince Carter straight-up swap on Jan. 11.”

On ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters,” everyone said Kobe was gone.

Jackson denies involvement in this boomlet, but it’s clear he became exasperated with Bryant after the All-Star break.

Running the Lakers involves striking a balance between O’Neal and Bryant. It might have been Shaq’s hectoring that drove Kobe back into his shell, but it was that shell that Phil had to crack.

Then, intentionally or not, Jackson, always so astute in thorny negotiations, slipped over the line too, with the Telander gaffe as exclamation point.

Nevertheless, there is one thing you have to say for Jackson and O’Neal:

They’re right.

The ball should go inside before it flies from 20 feet. Shaq is the one who needs the ball brought to him. Kobe is the one who must take it to him. It is the combination that makes the Lakers powerful, not what either can do on his own.

Bryant, now 22, is so precocious in so many ways--his skill, his grace, his poise, his confidence--it’s easy to miss that in other ways, he isn’t.

He doesn’t understand the opportunity to play with the game’s most dominating player is irreplaceable.

Worse, he doesn’t understand that even he has limits, that he can’t go to some black hole of a franchise and emerge with, as he once suggested, “eight titles.”

On one hand, he craves coaching. A year before Jackson came, Bryant called Tex Winter out of the blue to ask about the triangle. On the other, as Kobe’s high school coach, Greg Downer, noted even while rushing to his defense, he can be “headstrong” and “stubborn.”

So Bryant and Jackson clashed.

As the J.R. Rider misadventure showed, and the Glen Rice one before that, Jackson can forgive a lot of foibles but not on the floor. Despite Rider’s high jinks, Phil kept him around but wouldn’t just give him minutes, post him up and let him shoot. Rider had to run the triangle (good luck) or sit.

Jackson isn’t easy to break through to, himself. He seems detached, often bemused, but, as little as it shows, he suffers as much as his twitchier peers. He has called losing “humiliating,” and sometimes shuts himself away.

He now calls this “my toughest season.” After years of civic hysteria and organizational infighting in Chicago, not to mention Dennis Rodman, that’s saying something.

This, however, is not the Bulls, or it wasn’t before Jackson arrived.

Before Jackson, the Lakers promoted from within (Pat Riley, Randy Pfund, Kurt Rambis) or hired low-key outsiders (Mike Dunleavy, Del Harris).

Jackson was a high-priced star, tabbed by Jerry Buss, reportedly at O’Neal’s recommendation (with Bryant’s rapt endorsement.) He arrived with an entire crew of former Bull assistants, then mused about bringing in Rodman, Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr and Bison Dele, to name a few of his former players, before settling for Ron Harper.

This was a long way from the Laker way. Jackson took older, wiser role players, like Brian Shaw and John Salley, off the retired rolls over younger, more talented ones, like Ruben Patterson and Benoit Benjamin.

Then Jackson ended their series of pratfalls and won a title, buying himself a lot of credibility. Now he’s a Laker power--deservedly, not because he dates the owner’s daughter--making this a brave new Laker world.

Of course, if they can’t give peace a chance, it won’t be much of a world.

All season, Shaq’s people and Kobe’s people said the same thing: Why doesn’t Phil just sit them down and end it?

Shaq and Kobe’s people had struck out, trying to calm their guys too. Putting it on Jackson amounted to: “I can’t do it, so he’d better.”

Jackson believes in accountability--often through candid reviews in the press--and confrontation only as a last resort. He never sat Jordan down with any of the “supporting cast,” not when Jordan told teammates not to give Bill Cartwright the ball or ordered Horace Grant to stop shooting and get back to defending. Mike wasn’t that easy. Nor are Shaq and Kobe.

In the end, Jackson always nudged everyone into line . . . and, even at this late date, may be doing it again as the ongoing winning streak suggests.

O’Neal is in shape, dominating again and for the most part, thankfully for all concerned, leaving the coaching to Jackson.

Before Bryant’s return, Jackson was still sounding a stern note about what was expected--what Downer called “tough love”--but Kobe came back doing it.

“The one thing the Lakers have is the most dominant player in basketball [O’Neal] every single night on the floor,” Jackson said recently. “There’s nobody that can stand even remotely close to this guy, night in and night out, in basketball. From that standpoint, it’s pretty obvious what the structure of the team has to be. . . .

“I’m sure, given the promises I was given when I took this job, that this team will do whatever is necessary to win. Whether it’s to trade both of them, to trade one of them or the other of them. What we want to do is keep both of them here.”

In February, asked by HBO’s Bob Costas which star he’d choose, Jackson said it would be O’Neal.

In March, asked by Leno, Jackson said it would be like choosing between his sons.

The plan is to keep gruff old Dad and his sons together. Even if it’s a new day in his mind and you can hear them blocks away, they’re still Laker family.

Hey, It Worked 20 Years Ago . . .

The season has been so harrowing, old-time Lakers are thinking back to 1981, when, as defending champions, they were KO’d in the first round as trouble flared between erstwhile buddies Norm Nixon and Johnson.

“Dr. Buss may have to step in like he did with Norman and me,” Johnson said. “He took us to Vegas . . . he sat us down, he told us he’s not going to trade either one of us so let’s deal with it like men. . . .

“So maybe after the season, he has to talk to whoever--whether it’s Phil and Kobe, whether it’s Kobe and Shaq. Whoever.”

After the Las Vegas conference, the Lakers won titles in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988.

Time will tell what they’ll win this time, if anything, if everything.