Restraint of Trade

Two months ago, when their season was much closer to perfect and the champagne was still fresh on their breath, Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant had a talk.

Jackson wanted to know if Bryant, only 22, could do it all again, if he really wanted to do it again.

It was about Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, again, as it was last year and the year before, as it will be for as long as they are tied together in Los Angeles and on the Lakers.

Jackson asked Bryant if he wanted to be traded. While he was not part of the meeting, General Manager Mitch Kupchak knew of it and knew the topic of discussion.

Jackson remembered saying to Bryant, “If you’re not going to be happy here as a player, then I would want to move you on, if you can’t be happy coexisting with Shaq.”

While he has since admitted to a curiosity for life away from the offensive tug-of-war with O’Neal, away from the constraints of Jackson’s triangle offense, and away from the daily public scrutiny of all of that, Bryant told Jackson then that he did not wish to leave the Lakers. Under contract with the Lakers for this season and four more, Bryant said it again Tuesday.

“I’m the type of person who likes to make things work,” Bryant said. “Whatever cards have been dealt, I’m a loyal person, I’m with the Lakers and I’m going to be a Laker for life. But just out of curiosity you wonder what it would be like in another situation.”

Recently, Bryant smiled at the notion of playing in an average NBA offense, where there are isolation strategies for a player of his supreme one-on-one capabilities.

“I think I would be forced to do more things,” he said. “I’d be challenged more individually.”

But, he said, “This offense actually makes me a better player. You really have to figure out times when you can penetrate and move the defense. It’s more of a chess game in the triangle offense. It might be more of a challenge to me as an individual, but it’s better for us as a team. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. If you’re ready to put in the time and the energy to become a better player, it’s a lot harder to bring out your individual game.”

In his most productive season, Bryant is averaging 29.6 points, best in the NBA. His 4.6 assists a game lead the Lakers. He is shooting 47.5%, well above his career average.

Some of those numbers have come at the expense of O’Neal, the NBA’s reigning MVP. O’Neal contended it is not at all about the four points a game that have come off his scoring average (he’s at 25.8), but about the Lakers’ 11 defeats, four fewer than they had all of last season.

“I’m a big man,” O’Neal said after practice Tuesday. “You have to get me into the game. I don’t have the ball 40 times a game. I have to get it. If I don’t get it, all the stuff people are used to seeing me do? It doesn’t get done if I don’t get it. I’m a scoring big man. I’m dominant offensively. I can do things defensively. When you feed the big dog, the dog will be happy. I’m not Luc Longley. I’m not Dikembe Mutombo. I can’t run 13 minutes in a game without touching the ball. I’m not used to that. I wasn’t brought here to rebound and do that stuff. Jerry West brought me in here because he wanted me to play. I can put numbers on the board. I can do what I do.

“It’s not about points. We’re not an outside team. We’re an inside-out team.”

So the Lakers--in particular the relationship of Bryant and O’Neal--continue to be a curiosity. In a recent ESPN the Magazine article, Bryant appeared to suggest his game would be better served in another NBA lineup. In response to an early-season request by Jackson to run more possessions through O’Neal, according to the article, Bryant said, “Turn my game down? I need to turn it up. I’ve improved. How are you going to bottle me up? I’d be better off playing someplace else.”

By the end of Tuesday’s practice, Bryant’s trade demand had become a running joke. Jackson called to a handful of reporters, “I’ll be back to talk to you guys about where we’re trading Kobe.”

An hour later, Bryant returned the volley, asking Jackson for trade details. Jackson smiled and said, “I’m not giving you a choice. Vancouver looks pretty good right now.”

Bryant waved his hand and laughed.

“At the time I was struggling and I was going through a moment where I was trying to find my game,” Bryant said. “It’s human nature, there was some curiosity, wondering what it would be like to be in another situation. I think every player has been through that type of situation. When I first got here I wondered what it would be like to be on another team, but it was nothing serious. Really, it’s nothing serious.”

For the record, Kupchak wouldn’t seriously consider a trade.

“There’s nothing to it,” he said. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Nobody wants to go anywhere. It’s absurd to think Kobe would go anywhere.”

The relationship between O’Neal and Bryant has not changed. They are different men, different personalities, bound by the pursuit of another championship. O’Neal wants the offense to sweep through his capable hands. Bryant, sometimes, doesn’t have time to consider that.

“I had a conversation with Kobe a couple weeks into the season,” Jackson said. “We spent some time talking about particularly that, about toning his game down, about getting back into perspective how we want to play ball. We got it measured last year. We know what we want. We’ve got a style we can play and he knows how to play it. He wants to demonstrate what his athletic skills are as a basketball player and he feels he’s coming into his own as a player, that he’s fully developed as a basketball player. I said I have no problem with that in the context of our offense, it’s not just coming down one on four and throwing up a damn shot. He knows it, and he knows very well I’ll pull the hook out and put him on the bench right away if that’s the way he’s going to play basketball.”

Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. Bryant already had his chance to go.

“Kobe knows that’s the deal I have as a coach,” Jackson said, “that I want my players to be happy and I want them to coexist and those two guys are doing fine now.”