ISOLATION PLAY

By TIM BROWN

Feb. 7, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Anyone in the heaven-most tier at Staples Center, assuming the speed of light has yet brought them the result of Sunday’s game, can tell you of tragedy and heroism and loneliness. Loneliness, mostly.

Anyone who has parked more than two blocks from the corner of 11th and Figueroa can tell you of soliloquies from guys with skulls in one hand and jangling Burger King cups in the other.

Anyone who has ever worn a gold jersey with a millionaire’s name on the back and danced awkwardly to “I Love L.A.” all while punching the 800 number to hold three hours to hang 12 seconds with Romey can tell you, there is more to Los Angeles and the Lakers than the question--Shaq or Kobe?

Some days it’s bigger.

As in, Kobe or not Kobe?

That is The Question, and it rages in NBA arenas, on the airwaves, in newspapers, and even in his very own locker room.

Are you with him or against him? That is The Question.

All of 22 but counting the miles instead of the years, Kobe Bryant spends his public moments nodding patiently at his adorers, who believe he was sent from heaven--currently located in an office on Fifth Avenue in New York, where the NBA keeps its commissioner--to be Michael Jordan.

The rest of the time he spends ignoring those who are sure he was delivered from hell--currently believed to be either NFL headquarters or Mark Cuban’s den--to ravage the Lakers and totally annoy Shaquille O’Neal.

“There is nothing in between,” Bryant said Tuesday.

He was leaning against his new Ferrari, some black paint slapped on a rumbling Concorde engine. The windows are smoky black, so no one gets in unless he lowers them. And he has air-conditioning.

“I’m growing with it,” he said. “It’s a learning process.”

Bryant is thoroughly charming to the children who surround him after Laker games. He looks them in the eye, asks if they liked the game and if they’d give him a high-five.

“Nope, gotta jump for it,” he teases them, and the parents chuckle. “C’mon, can you jump?”

They always get him, on the second try.

The basketball is even better.

“There’s so much joy,” Bryant said. “I just escape from everything, out there playing with your teammates. Everything else falls off. No matter what was said in the paper that day or the week before, all that stuff falls off to the side and you’re just out there playing basketball.”

The rest, though, man, it’s more than he ever thought it would be.

The unkind words don’t sadden him as they once did, but he flinches. He said he’s not as lonely anymore. Not as lonely. Yet only last week Phil Jackson reminded Bryant not to forget his teammates, to include them in the strain of playing without O’Neal, to trust them to help.

In the five games since O’Neal injured his right arch, Bryant has averaged 25 shots, 35 points, 15 free throws and nine rebounds. The Lakers have won three of them.

“More than anything it’s kind of a miscommunication,” Bryant said. “They see me out there in practice going all out and going hard, wanting to win. A lot of times, they just want to hear from me. That’s something I’ve been kind of taking for granted.”

Asked what, exactly, his teammates had been waiting for, Bryant said, “Just, ‘Hey, let’s win! Let’s get it done!’ ”

Then he laughed, as if this would be utterly out of character. But, hey, if that’s what they need . . .

“It’s simple,” Bryant said. “I think everybody knows I want to be the best basketball player I can possibly be. A lot of people take that as selfish. But in order to be the best basketball player I can possibly be, we need to win. So, it all coincides with that goal.”

Jerry West resigned from the Lakers this summer, but Bryant still calls him.

“Jerry is constantly giving me advice,” Bryant said. “He also says, ‘Dammit, Kobe, you’re so damn stubborn.’ He laughs, because he says, ‘You remind me of me when I was a player.’ ”

You imagine when the calls would come:

In the worst of his tiff with O’Neal, probably, a handful of times.

After last week’s loss in Minnesota, maybe, when teammates demanded he pass the ball more, and he said he’d start when they made more shots.

On the drive home, along Pacific Coast Highway, perhaps, when he wonders if anyone else could possibly understand what the stuff around the game was doing to him.

“The one thing that made it so hard, this summer I worked so hard to try to help this team, to do the best job I can to help this team win,” Bryant said. “Then, to be criticized for it, for improving, for working on my game, it’s real tough to swallow.

“It upsets me. But what are you going to do? I just have to try to keep winning and hopefully everything else will fall off. But it’s a difficult period.”

Still, he said, it is bothersome.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time it is.”

He talks to Jackson, but they have a curious relationship. The coach snaps at Bryant in the huddle, rides him in the newspaper, glares at him on the floor. They seem to like each other, though. At the Laker training facility in El Segundo on Tuesday, Bryant parked that new Ferrari in front of a sign with huge block letters: “PHIL JACKSON.”

Asked if he believed his headstrong personality impeded their relationship, Bryant said, “No. I’m headstrong, but I’m reasonable.”

Like Jackson?

“No,” Bryant said, grinning. “Phil’s just headstrong.”

Jackson, of course, experienced the Jordan phenomenon, the adulation soaked in condemnation, from only a few feet away. He doesn’t know Bryant like he knew Jordan, however, in part because Bryant won’t let him.

“I’ve never spent a lot of time talking to Kobe about that,” Jackson said. “He seems to always be like a duck; he lets criticism roll off his back like rain. He’s not concerned with anybody’s opinion but his own and his closest allies.

“He’s an insulated person. He’s pretty isolated. From that standpoint, he’s impervious to most criticisms. We have had our moments to talk. He’s tried to work the best he possibly can under the circumstances to do what I’m asking him to do. I try to keep it very short and very limited how many times I talk to Kobe. That’s the best thing we do together, to make sure our business relationship is real good and forthright and honest. So, as critical as I am of him, he knows that I appreciate what he does and the competitive drive in him.”

In that regard, not even Jackson can avoid the polarity of Kobe Bryant. Bryant said he’s growing into it. They all are. Until then, there will be questions, some without answers.

* RELUCTANT ALL-STAR

An aching Kobe Bryant will play Sunday, but if he had his druthers . . . D5

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Shouldering the Load

Kobe Bryant’s statistics before Shaq was injured, and after:

BEFORE (41 games)

Points per game: 29.3

Field-goal pct.: .466

Free-throw pct.: .865

Shots per game: 22.9

Free throws per game: 7.8

SINCE (5 games)