Coming-of-Age Story Is All About Bryant

The state where Kobe Bryant fell from grace is as good a place as any to start his reclamation.

That’s the story line of this season, much more than the already-played-out Kobe and Phil angle.

As this plays out it will be about Bryant; it will be about, believe it or not, basketball. And there are few people on the planet who can play it like Bryant.

In the Lakers’ season opener, Bryant single-handedly led the Lakers past the Denver Nuggets in overtime, when he scored eight points, including the game-winning shot with 0.6 seconds remaining.

Already you can tell the subtle effects of Bryant’s greatest ally, the passage of time. It’s been more than two years since he was first charged with sexual assault for an encounter that Bryant said was consensual in an Eagle, Colo., hotel room, more than a year since the case was dismissed. The fans at the Pepsi Center still booed Bryant every time he touched the ball Wednesday night, but it was with diminished intensity. And there were no derogatory signs and no one dressed in orange prison attire with Bryant’s No. 8 on the back

A “No means no” chant surfaced in the fourth quarter, but for most of the night the fans mocked the black tights that extended from beneath Bryant’s shorts into his socks.

“Nice tights Kobe!”

In their own way these silly taunts marked the return to normalcy, the crazy things fans would say to any opponent in their arena.

In Jackson’s first game back on the Laker bench, he found the observation he made while watching Bryant from afar last season still holds true:

“A lot of the end-of-game situation was extremely difficult for him because of the fatigue, because he’d worn out all the expertise he’d had during the first 3 1/2 quarters,” Jackson said before the game.

How true. Bryant was nine for 19 in the first three quarters and one for six in the fourth quarter. By then the Nuggets concentrated on denying Bryant the ball, unafraid of any other purple-clad player on the floor.

But Bryant found enough in overtime to push his point total to 33, the Lakers needing every single one of them.

This is about the best these Lakers can hope for, keeping it tight and letting Bryant take over, like a baseball team squeezing innings from the middle relievers until it’s time for the closer.

There’s no conflict right now. Bryant wants to shoot the ball, Jackson expects and encourages it.

“At the beginning of the season, I think Kobe’s going to have to carry a large share of the burden of scoring until we find other people that can step in and score and have the confidence,” Jackson said.

The Lakers don’t have a long list of candidates. Smush Parker nominated himself Wednesday night with a 20-point performance that included the highlight of the night, a fast-break dunk over Andre Miller.

Devean George, who’s familiar with the triangle and playing for a new contract, will have his moments.

Those three were the only Lakers with double-digit points.

Anyone else out there? Hellloooo?

Lamar Odom still doesn’t look comfortable running the offense, Chris Mihm was overpowered by Denver’s front line and Andrew Bynum was welcomed to the league by a rejection of his first shot, courtesy of Kenyon Martin.

Six days after Bynum’s 18th birthday, he became the youngest player in NBA history.

But the most important birthday of the Lakers’ season came in the summer. Aug. 23, to be precise. It was the day Bryant turned 27.

It’s the age at which maturity starts to kick in, a key reason why Bryant will be able to coexist with Jackson despite everything Jackson wrote about him in “The Last Season.”

“Life is too short to sit around and hold grudges,” Bryant said on media day, when he heard the first of what will total 1,000 queries on the subject this season. “Two or three years ago, would I have had the same response? Probably not.

“You get older and you realize life is too short to be holding grudges.”

Another significant thing about 27: It’s the age Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Kevin Garnett were when they won their first most valuable player awards.

It’s an age when the game gets simple, and a player can outthink the younger guys on the floor.

The change in Bryant since the last time Jackson coached him isn’t something Bryant could develop in one of his fanatical off-season workouts.

“More than anything else, perhaps, patience is the thing that he’s added to his game,” Jackson said.

There are times when Bryant will try to do too much, such as the charge he picked up trying to take Marcus Camby one on one, one of six turnovers Bryant had on the night.

Jackson will have to live with those. The Lakers will rise and fall almost exclusively on Bryant’s successes and failures. One game in, one victory, one step back to the top.

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