No Circus for Team With Rings on Its Mind

Right around the time Cirque du Soleil took its blue-and-gold tent from the Staples Center parking lot, the circus atmosphere left the Lakers.

Haven’t seen any “Inside Edition” camera crews and haven’t heard reporters raising questions related to Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case lately. No signs or showers of boos when the Lakers hit the road last week, either.

Give an assist to Michael Jackson, who was charged Nov. 20 with committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14. There might be a lot of Bryant’s No. 8 jerseys around the country, but they’re nothing compared to the millions of albums Jackson has sold around the world.

Bryant is learning the benefits of playing on a multi-star team. Not only is he relieved of the scoring burden, he also doesn’t have to spend all of the time in the media spotlight.

Last week the focus shifted to Karl Malone. Both the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks courted him over the summer right up until he signed with the Lakers. He was actually booed more than Bryant was at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. And reporters from Salt Lake City came in advance of Malone’s first game against his former team, the Utah Jazz, which Malone will now miss because of a one-game suspension for elbowing Dallas’ Steve Nash on Thursday.

In San Antonio, a couple of fans who had been riding Gary Payton and Shaquille O’Neal had a golden opportunity to chide Bryant after the Lakers beat the Spurs on Wednesday. But as Bryant sat on the scorer’s table in his purple-and-gold uniform and waited to do a radio interview, one of them courted the free-agent-to-be.

“Kobe, you’d look a lot better in silver and black,” he said.

Bryant simply looked up and smiled.

Sights

A teenage O’Neal.

One of O’Neal’s teachers at Cole High in San Antonio attended Wednesday’s game, and she gave the Spurs a letter and a copy of an old picture of them together that she wanted passed along to O’Neal. In the photo, O’Neal was wearing his letterman’s jacket ... and a beat-up pair of Nikes.

Sounds

San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich, before the Spurs played the Lakers, joking about how Tim Duncan’s one-game suspension for pushing a referee could actually help the quiet superstar become more popular: “That’s how you do it; you get in trouble. You get sexier, you get in more commercials. Street cred. I’m going to try to get him on MTV next. And then, I think, he’ll be the darling of the league.”

Faces In The Crowd

Sidney Poitier, Gwen Stefani, James L. Brooks, Sunday vs. Indiana.

David Robinson and saxophonist Mike Phillips, at San Antonio on Wednesday.

Chuck Norris, former running back Herschel Walker and current Cowboys Roy Williams and Larry Allen at Dallas on Thursday.

In a Word

Neutralize.

That’s Payton’s description for what the Lakers have done to opponents in their eight-game win streak. The full quote: “We just say, ‘We’ve got to go out and neutralize these teams.’ And that’s what we do.”