Bryant and O’Neal Take It Coast to Coast

Reality couldn’t get past the security guard at the Lakers’ training facility Monday. The inside of the HealthSouth training center was the Kobe Cocoon, that alternate universe where the Lakers’ prospects look bright, everyone gets along and Kobe Bryant isn’t considered the biggest rat in the NBA.

Outside the gate, a sports world that gave Bryant the benefit of the doubt -- and his legally entitled presumption of innocence -- after he was charged with felony sexual assault last year now looks at him skeptically after recent revelations that in his lowest moments he tried to drag Shaquille O’Neal down with him.

As The Times reported last week, Bryant told police detectives investigating the allegation against him that he should have done what he claimed O’Neal does: pay women off not to talk after sexual encounters.

O’Neal’s agent said Bryant’s allegation was untrue, and O’Neal said Bryant wouldn’t know about his business, since they never hung out. He also called Bryant “a clown” and “a joke.” (Or, as one NBA player broke it down for me, “Not a clown who tells jokes. A clown and a joke.”)

Everyone in the NBA circle that I’ve spoken to is stunned that a teammate could point a finger at a teammate to the police -- under minimal pressure to do so -- and has serious doubts about his character, his ability to consider anyone but himself.

He broke the Guy Code.

It’s interesting that Bryant adhered to the code when it applied to his own skin. One rule is, when caught, deny everything. Witness Bill Clinton (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman ... “). Or Eddie Murphy in “Raw” (“It wasn’t me.”)

When police detectives asked Bryant if he’d had sex with the 19-year-old hotel worker, he initially said no. Later, he said they had consensual sex.

But Bryant failed to follow Rule No. 1: Never implicate another man.

From the playground to the Mafia, that’s a given.

Take this exchange from the movie “Old School,” when Luke Wilson walks in on Craig Kilborn kissing a woman other than his girlfriend:

“What’re you gonna do, tell on me?” Kilborn says. “You know, you can’t, buddy. It’s Guy Code, OK? Guys don’t tell on other guys.”

Otherwise the whole male world order falls apart. Las Vegas would have to get a new ad campaign: “What happens here, stays here -- unless a guy like Kobe’s with you.”

As it relates to the Lakers, it makes you wonder if they’ve put the right player in charge.

New Coach Rudy Tomjanovich was talking about the importance of loyalty Monday, saying such things as, “We’re family no matter what happens.”

Even after one family member told on another last year?

Can Bryant really be counted on to lead his teammates?

“Why wouldn’t I?” Bryant said.

Well, because he has violated The Code.

Bryant laughed.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You have to ask them.”

The bulked-up, confident Bryant stood at the middle of the Laker practice court Monday. He was a far cry from the frail, shaken man who arrived at training camp in Hawaii a year ago. Apparently he grew stronger this summer as the criminal case against him eroded in a series of favorable rulings by the judge and signs of desperation by the prosecutors, until they finally dropped the charge when the accuser didn’t want to testify.

It was a relief to Bryant but, it turns out, a mixed blessing. Once the criminal case went away, court-related documents started surfacing, including the police interview in which Bryant accused O’Neal, and another transcript in which Bryant told of an extramarital affair with a woman named Michelle.

The civil case his accuser filed is still pending, but at least Bryant’s worst-case scenarios no longer involve a lifetime prison sentence.

“It feels extremely different,” Bryant said of his new status and his new team.

You know it’s a different day when the Laker center says, “Kobe’s the main guy; we should all be excited to help him out,” as Vlade Divac did.

It was all peace and harmony in Lakerland. Or, as the team should now be called after Kobe beat out O’Neal and Phil Jackson in the summertime shuffle, the laKers.

Bryant refused to be drawn into a bicoastal war of words with O’Neal.

“I’m not verbal sparring at all,” Bryant said. “Things are what they are. My focus is this team and just moving on. We had eight good years together. We moved on our separate ways. I wish him all the best.”

He’s taking the high road, being friendly to some media adversaries, doing all the things you would expect of a man in desperate need of some image rehab.

And his teammates were trying to help.

Lamar Odom, acquired in the trade that sent O’Neal to the Miami Heat, said of Bryant, “Nothing has changed in my eyes. He’s a good person.”

Bryant said, “This is my team to lead,” and so far everyone’s been following, heeding his commands to show up for workouts and pickup games in the summer.

He even joined them on a fishing trip to Catalina.

On the boat, just as in their practice gym, they didn’t have to worry about how the laKer roster, other than Bryant and Odom, looks pretty ordinary and it would be a major achievement just to finish in the upper echelon of the loaded Western Conference.

Bryant said he caught “multiple tuna” and that Brian Cook landed the biggest fish of the day.

That’s all good on a summertime boat, but during the season the Lakers will miss the Big One that got away.

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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.