Getting Behind 8-Ball

Brave new Laker world.

The Soap Opera Dynasty is no more. Shaquille O’Neal is in Miami, Karl Malone in Orange County, Gary Payton in Boston, Derek Fisher in Oakland, Rick Fox in Hollywood and Phil Jackson on his book tour.

Kobe Bryant, the only one who intended to leave all along, is the only one who’s left ... holding the bag.

“It’s been all personal,” says Fisher, the little stand-up Laker for so long, now a Warrior. “Because he’s still here, he’s got to take the brunt of most of that stuff that everybody’s talking about.

“The sad part to me is there hasn’t been much talk about the team, how great we were, how great we were not at times.”

Their good times lasted five seasons, from the 2000 title to the 2004 Finals when they -- finally -- blew into their constituent parts.

Bryant says he was an innocent. Actually, he was the linchpin.

Jackson and O’Neal say Bryant ran them out. Actually, Jerry Buss ran them out because they demanded king’s ransoms and his priority was Bryant -- which was the only choice, if you had to choose.

The tag team of Jackson and O’Neal says Bryant was the problem. Actually, the problem was always the clash of egos and Bryant’s, while formidable, was only one of them.

If Jackson is older and wiser, he had one of the egos, which now leads him to conduct guided tours through the “sanctuary” he once protected so sanctimoniously.

Bryant was, indeed, the problem in the coach’s first two seasons as Jackson tried to jam him in line behind O’Neal, as everyone knew it had to be -- except Bryant.

However, O’Neal was the problem in the next two. To everyone’s astonishment, he got along fine with Bryant but came in heavy, took all season to play himself into shape, was often hurt, and got upset when Jackson prodded him.

That was when Shaq decided Gary Vitti wasn’t supporting him, either, and, as Jackson notes, made Chip Schaefer his personal guy in the trainer’s room.

Bryant’s arrest, and remarks about O’Neal to police, changed everything back. Hanging on by his fingernails, without his trademark poise, Bryant vented to teammates about leaving because of O’Neal, alienated the Laker press corps that had previously stayed unaligned, and took offense at Jackson’s suggestions.

Jackson knew Bryant would need room, but by January, Phil was all out.

Jackson had his own issues. With his contract running out, he was ambivalent about returning, which may have been another reason he said it was Bryant or him, a commitment he had to know Buss wouldn’t give him.

Buss took Jackson’s demand as a resignation, pulling his extension offer off the table and even announcing it.

Showing how crazy things were, Jackson said he didn’t know why Buss jerked the rug out from under him. Jackson had been told often enough they would never trade Bryant, including by girlfriend Jeanie Buss.

Jackson now airs his perspective on the talk-show circuit. O’Neal has a new version daily for his new rapt audience, which stares up at him with eyes wide as if he were the Story Lady.

O’Neal says he pretended to feud with Jackson to keep the pressure off Bryant, who never passed to him and was the reason -- not age or conditioning -- his production fell.

O’Neal says he pretended to feud with Jackson to motivate himself, since Staples Center crowds were subdued.

Tune in for O’Neal’s latest reason for pretending to feud with Jackson. It may have been an FBI sting he was helping with.

It was a pile-on with Bryant bashed, seemingly from someone new each day, as if the Shaq-Kobe Lakers had never won anything before Bryant demolished them, single-handedly.

“Obviously, he didn’t see the things with Phil coming,” says Fisher. “I’m sure he knew there would be some back-and-forth with Shaq. ...

“I don’t think anybody sees anything the same way Phil sees it. [Laughing] I mean, that’s what makes him Phil Jackson.”

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Looking for a Home

No one saw this coming, least of all Bryant, who lives in an inner circle so small it’s like a world of its own.

He’s more driven than ever, aching to prove he can make this work. Showing the strain he’s under, he’s angrier, talking more trash. Seattle’s Ray Allen blasted him as “selfish,” after Bryant scored 35 to the other Lakers’ 45 in the exhibition opener and engaged Allen mano a mano.

Bryant thought it had all been in good fun and hugged Allen afterward.

Off the floor, Bryant is more gun-shy than ever. Even last season, he did one-on-one interviews with journalists he trusted, but that number is down to about three and he isn’t sitting down with them, either. The most he’ll do is to allow his version to be reported, if he isn’t quoted directly.

No one else is talking, either. So, from Bryant and sources on both local teams, this is how contract negotiations went:

Bryant focused on the Clippers as far back as last fall when his agent, Rob Pelinka, was heard telling a team official, “Save your cap room.” Bryant liked the challenge of turning around what was considered a hopeless case, and it would have allowed him and wife Vanessa to stay in Orange County.

Bryant assumed O’Neal would remain a Laker, that they’d meet four times a season, and was looking forward to it.

Bryant often mentioned taking one or another of his teammates with him. Jackson mentioned Slava Medvedenko; more often it was Malone or Fisher.

There was a thaw last spring, with Bryant saying privately he might not even opt out and Jeanie Buss saying she thought Jackson was about to get a contract extension.

The loss to the Pistons ended that. Bryant says he came out of it intent on leaving, to play the rest of his career stress-free. He didn’t want to get rid of O’Neal and Jackson; he wanted to be the one who went.

Determined to keep Bryant, but with no commitment from him, Buss decided to trade O’Neal and let Jackson go.

Even if they wound up losing Bryant, it made no sense to Buss to keep O’Neal, who wanted $140 million to $150 million through 2009, or Jackson, who wanted $25 million for two seasons, since they weren’t likely to win more titles and would have no cap room for the duration.

As if to confirm the Lakers’ worst fears, even as they shopped O’Neal, they couldn’t get Bryant to opt out soon enough to keep Jamal Sampson off the expansion list.

Instead, Bryant opted out the very next day. The Lakers spent two miserable weeks facing the possibility that they would trade O’Neal to keep Bryant only to lose him too.

Before the draft, Pelinka advised the Clippers whom to take at No. 4, which carried the suggestion that this was who Bryant wanted: Arizona’s Andre Iguodala (a Pelinka client.) The Clippers made their own choice: Shaun Livingston.

Bryant became aware his options weren’t great. Cap rules limited the Clipper offer to $106 million compared with the Lakers’ $136 million. And then there was the Donald T. Sterling factor.

Staying wasn’t attractive, either, with O’Neal on his way out and no hope of getting a big man back.

Trying to develop better options, Bryant called Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski on the Lakers’ behalf. Bryant said he wasn’t recruiting him, but Krzyzewski told several of his players that Bryant had just asked him to come coach him.

Bryant even invited the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls to the Four Seasons in Newport Beach to make presentations, although neither had cap room and the Lakers wouldn’t discuss sign-and-trades.

Ten days before announcing his decision, Bryant told the Clipper delegation of Elgin Baylor, Mike Dunleavy and Andy Roeser that he wanted to come and there was no way he was going back

In the final days, Bryant consulted old mentors, including Jerry West.

People close to Bryant started talking about the folly of “leaving $30 million on the table.”

Pelinka didn’t even know the night before Bryant was to announce his decision what it would be.

Bryant didn’t decide until late that night, after talking by phone with Buss, who was then in Croatia, but had negotiated the last word.

Bryant stayed -- but everything else changed.

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Future Isn’t Now Anymore

Happily for Laker fans still paying dynasty-era prices plus this season’s increase, the organization has more plans than it is talking about.

If there’s hope this team can return to an entertaining, Showtime style, management is focused on 2007 when Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire could be on the market, or 2008 when LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Darko Milicic or Dwyane Wade could be.

This will come at a price: With $35.5 million on the books for 2007, the Lakers can’t make any commitments beyond that and still must unload a player or two.

To keep Caron Butler or Chris Mihm, who can be free in 2007, they would have to get rid of as much salary as they added.

This is often whispered about as a Yao strategy, but people close to him say he isn’t the type to leave.

This isn’t about one player, but getting in position to add someone great.

That leaves the next two seasons as a transition period, which will pale in excitement.

The Laker dynamic will change. Teammates will no longer be torn between superstars and will get behind Bryant, the one they have.

The NBA dynamic will change. Instead of being part of the game’s mightiest tandem, Bryant will be rebuilding in the powerful West while O’Neal is featured, beaming, on all the magazine covers and romps around the East.

Suitors, like the Clippers, told Bryant that if he stayed he’d have to listen to people say he ran off O’Neal and Jackson, which began as soon as Bryant re-signed. Nevertheless, it came as a surprise to Bryant, who asked friends why anyone would think that. It wasn’t exactly true, but there was an element of truth in it and he made powerful enemies, who wanted to put it on him. That’ll do it every time.

Bryant’s career won’t become stress-free. No one will ever know what really happened in Colorado, or see him the same way. He may get some endorsement cachet back, as he hopes, or not. He may relax enough to leave his cocoon, or not.

On the bright side, things can’t get any harder than they’ve been, the remaining Lakers hope.