It’s Time Bryant Puts His Needs First

Kobe Bryant needs to be more selfish.

Never thought you’d see those words, did you? Well, we never thought we’d have a sentence with “Kobe Bryant” as the subject and “charged with felony sexual assault” as the predicate, either.

Basketball isn’t the main topic anymore. And right now playing basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers isn’t the solution for Bryant.

“This is my job,” he says, and this is what he does best.

But at the moment it’s just another source of frustration. He can’t do it to the best of his capabilities at the moment. How can he be expected to when his leg is weak, his mind is distracted and his heart isn’t in it?

Kobe Bryant wants out. He’s trapped. Even as walls he erected to keep the media, his teammates and at times even his own family out of his personal life have crumbled, another barrier of vines and weeds has grown beyond his own control: that entrapment called fame.

He offered an intriguing peek inside after practice Monday. He responded to a question prompted by the observation that religion has increasingly popped up in his speech (and now a biblical passage tattooed on his arm) -- all of this since he was accused of raping a woman in a Colorado hotel room, an act he says was consensual.

“Going through something like this humbles you, and you understand that your ultimate purpose here is to do God’s work,” Bryant said.

“When I’m out there playing basketball it’s not me going out there and playing or me controlling it, it’s about me maximizing the blessing that God has given me. It’s not about the money, it’s not about the fame and all that other stuff. It’s about going out there and doing what I do best and having a good time doing it. To be honest with you, I’d much rather play basketball and not be famous. I’d much rather do something else that I love doing, getting paid well to do it and being able to be married to my wife and raise our children without anybody bothering us when we go out in public or everybody scrutinizing every little detail, everybody making up rumors about our lives. I’d take that better than this, any day of the week.”

That wish doesn’t reconcile very well with playing Laker games with Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton in a sold-out Staples Center on network TV, does it?

Currently, Bryant isn’t even ready to compete in full scrimmages behind a locked gym door. His leg strength isn’t there, Bryant and Coach Phil Jackson said. The knee that prompted the surgery that brought him to that Colorado hotel room in the first place still isn’t back to normal.

Bryant always wants to be in the thick of things. He wants the ball when the score is tied and the seconds are ticking down and the crowd is screaming.

But these days, when the action gets hot, Bryant must take a seat.

“I’m itching,” Bryant said. “I’m itching. I’m itching for some competition.”

I thought training camp in Hawaii might be a good escape for him, that once he got past the initial media crush he could be in his element.

That was before I saw him forced to the side, like the tag-along little brother left out when the big kids play.

That was before I heard Jackson and O’Neal say how they’re prepared to go ahead without Bryant if need be. (“As long as the Diesel’s out there, we’ll be fine,” O’Neal said Saturday night.)

“The reality is that, basketball-wise, Kobe can’t focus completely on basketball as he has in the past,” Jackson said. “Basketball had been his focus 125% of the time. That’s one of the reasons why he’s been driven to be a star in the NBA. Maybe it’ll work on his behalf -- maybe it will work on our behalf, in some ways too.”

That’s Jackson, who’s viewing everything in the positive mind-set of a baseball manager in spring training, putting his optimistic spin on things.

It’s obvious that this isn’t the same old fearless Bryant.

Not when we hear him use such words as “terrified” (fears for his family he expressed in his first meeting with the media) and “humble.”

There’s one word Bryant hasn’t used yet. It’s a quality he never exhibited, starting from the day he announced he would bypass college and go straight to the pros from high school: patience.

Bryant’s fight right now is bigger than this season. And it’s bigger than the team. Every move he makes should be with his long-term future in mind. And for every action that happens, he has to recognize that only time will make things better -- or even more tolerable.

“The unfortunate part about it is, that he had a collision with destiny, if you can call it that,” Jackson said. “And now it’s his chance to right it again and move on. I always think the hardest thing is that he remember that this too will pass. People will never forget about this, but it won’t be an issue for him in four or five years. Kobe’s not going to be judged by this. He’s going to be judged by an entirely different set -- How’d he do with his comeback or in his second part of his career? How did he overcome this obstacle? -- will be more or less what he’s judged on.”

If you disagree with Jackson, think about Mike Tyson. He’s probably thought of as the man who bit Evander Holyfield’s ear in the boxing ring more than the man who was convicted of rape.

Every time you see Bryant these days you must legally think of him as an innocent man.

I just don’t see someone who’s ready to play basketball.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.