He Loves a Charade, Not a Parade

OK Kobe, now that the best center and most successful coach in recent NBA history have left on your watch, now that NBA executives have zipped around the country and bowed to you at your whim, tell us exactly when the Lakers will win the championship.

How many games will the NBA Finals last, when’s the parade, where should the new banner go?

Kobe Bryant had better have the answers -- or, more accurately, the results -- now that he has ended this long charade and confirmed Thursday what we’ve known for some time: The Lakers officially belong to him.

In the same week the franchise’s status took a dramatic drop with the trade of Shaquille O’Neal to the Miami Heat, the pressure on Bryant zoomed. It’s a good thing he likes the ball in his hands when it counts, because nothing less than a championship hand-delivered by him can justify his self-indulgence and the Lakers’ compliance with his demands.

Owner Jerry Buss and General Manager Mitch Kupchak insisted this week that the decisions to trade O’Neal and part ways with coach Phil Jackson were made independently of Bryant. I have a hard time believing that and refuse to even listen to any suggestion that Bryant didn’t want it this way.

Even if they didn’t ask his opinion, Bryant’s silence on these matters was louder than a jet engine.

Do you really think that if Bryant wanted Jackson and O’Neal here they would be gone? In a year when the Lakers’ stated goal was to do everything possible to keep the unrestricted free agent Bryant from leaving, a few simple words from Kobe on behalf of the coach and the center would have given the pair all the leverage they needed. A little support could have kept them in L.A.

Instead, nothing. He felt they were cramping his style, even though the triangle offense and O’Neal’s presence didn’t keep Bryant from launching 230 more shots than O’Neal this season, didn’t keep Bryant from running his streak of All-Star game appearances to six, didn’t keep Bryant from becoming one of the most popular athletes in the world.

Oh, they also made sure he didn’t join the list of Great Players Who Never Won a Championship.

O’Neal owes Bryant some thanks for keeping him out of that club too. Occasionally, Shaq would even say so. But not often enough.

This isn’t about playing nice-nice. Only two things came into play here: ego and money.

Count your blessings, L.A. It was money that brought O’Neal to Lakerland in the first place, when the Lakers went to $126 million, the Orlando Magic didn’t match and just like that the Lakers mattered again.

It was money that kept Bryant in the gold uniform and nice locker room at Staples Center and just like that kept the Lakers from dropping into oblivion.

But it was money -- and O’Neal’s egotistical insistence on a maximum extension -- that soured his relationship with the team and led to his way out.

And it was Bryant’s ego that led to so many sleepless nights for Kupchak.

Bryant needed to be told again and again how great he was, so he had general mangers and owners fly to bow at his feet.

This wasn’t about squeezing some more dollars out of the Lakers, because they’d been ready to offer as much as they possibly could -- and about $30 million more than anyone else -- from the get-go. It was about finding out exactly what his status was, how much he was cherished.

Now he knows. The New York Knick brass came across country at a moment’s notice. The Clippers cleared out players to open as much salary-cap space as possible.

If Bryant were a Laker through-and-through, why even make the other teams go through that? Why string along the Chicago Bulls until the last stages?

If Bryant’s main goal was to win championships while making some serious money, the most logical move would have been to go to San Antonio. The chance to play alongside Tim Duncan in his prime while making close to $100 million sounds like a plan to me. I’m sure the Spurs would have said adios to Manu Ginobili and even reconfigured the Riverwalk to form the number 8 just to accommodate Bryant.

Bryant wanted to be a Laker, huh?

So what was the holdup after the O’Neal trade went down?

When Kupchak stepped to the microphone Wednesday to discuss the O’Neal trade, Bryant should have been right behind him, holding a pen, asking, “Where do I sign?”

What was left to analyze? Why wait?

After one of the great ego-gratification tours in NBA history, is it possible he wanted to let the O’Neal news die down, sit back a bit, so he could have all of the attention to himself?

Is it that far-fetched? Well, isn’t this whole thing about individual glory?

Because it sure isn’t about winning. At this point, most basketball observers think the Clippers with Kobe would have looked more promising than the scaled-down Lakers with Kobe.

The number that jumps out is 50%. That’s the approximate winning percentage of the Lakers when O’Neal didn’t play. It’s also a shooting percentage that Bryant never approached. O’Neal surpassed it every year of his career. (Michael Jordan, by the way, did it six times.)

O’Neal on the low block is the highest-percentage shot in the NBA. That’s why the Heat is now in the championship picture, even if it’s not seated in the front row.

I thought that feat made him the single greatest force in the game. One man who can make a team a contender. Now it’s time to rethink. Bryant just showed he can make two teams -- the Lakers and Clippers -- weaker. Now that’s power.

Too bad he didn’t use it for good.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.