Bryant: Denver Trip Not Big Deal

Kobe Bryant returns to Colorado today, a trip Bryant says does not carry any significance four months after sexual-assault charges were dropped against him in a court room in Eagle, Colo.

“Not a big deal to me,” he said before Monday’s game against Minnesota. “Done with it. Not a big deal to me, bro.”

The Lakers are scheduled to practice in Denver today. They play the Nuggets on Wednesday night.

“When I think about last season, I think about what a blessing it was to go through something like that,” Bryant said. “I don’t look at it as a curse. I look at it as a blessing. It got me close to God. God helps you and he carries you through many days.

“It feels like a burden, but there are many people in this world who have bigger crosses to bear. My wife’s healthy, my daughter’s healthy, my family’s healthy. You’ve got to keep that in perspective.”

A federal civil suit against Bryant filed by his accuser began Monday with depositions taken in Houston.

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Laker assistant coach Frank Hamblen is more than familiar with the triangle offense, which re-debuted with the Lakers Friday and appeared again Monday against the Timberwolves.

Hamblen, the longest-tenured assistant in the league, spent three seasons with Phil Jackson in Chicago and is in his sixth season with the Lakers. Earlier in his career, he spent two seasons as a Houston Rocket assistant in the 1970s, where the head coach at the time was Tex Winter, the architect of the triple-post offense.

Laker Coach Rudy Tomjanovich and Bryant decided to revive the offense after a talk before practice Thursday.

“It was a way of getting everybody involved, instead of everybody sitting around and watching two players take all the shots,” Hamblen said.

Unlike the Bulls’ teams of the 1990s that won six NBA titles, and the Laker teams that won titles in 2000, ’01 and ‘02, the Lakers will not use the triangle as their primary set ... at least not yet.

“Phil and Tex, their main feeling would be that if you run the triangle set, you need to commit totally to it,” said Hamblen, who has 35 seasons of coaching experience.

“I am not a master of the triangle -- that’s Phil’s and Tex’s thing -- but other teams in the league have had success running the triangle with other sets as well. We’ll have to see. We still have sets we’ll be successful with. We’ll stick with those too.”

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Tomjanovich made a pitch last summer to sign troubled free-agent forward Eddie Griffin, who signed instead with Minnesota and is averaging 9.9 points and 6.2 rebounds.

“I was hoping he was going to come with us,” Tomjanovich said. “I think Kevin Garnett can be very persuasive.”

Griffin, who played for Tomjanovich for two seasons with the Rockets, was later convicted of marijuana possession, jailed for violating curfew and treated for alcohol dependency.

“I’ve been there myself,” said Tomjanovich, who went through alcohol rehab several years ago.