Michael Ventre

In most areas of life, attempting to psychoanalyze someone without the proper training can be futile and sometimes downright dangerous.

But in the realm of sports, it’s a sport.

Fans and media types do it all the time. Most do it without a couch, a diploma from a Viennese institute and a prescription pad, but they do it. They pick apart athletes, coaches and team personnel in an often fruitless but nonetheless enthusiastic attempt to find out what makes them behave the way they do.

Delving into the psyche of people inside of sports is the divine right of people outside of sports.

Playing shrink is even more fun when the patient is rich, famous and controversial, as in the case of Kobe Bryant. On Tuesday night, Bryant smacked Minnesota’s Marko Jaric in the face, an eerie reminder of what occurred in late January against San Antonio’s Manu Ginobili. In both cases, Bryant was slapped afterward with a one-game suspension.

On the surface, it would appear to the novice armchair therapist that Bryant just doesn’t like foreigners. And if only I could wrap up my analysis there and prescribe sensitivity training, everyone could move on.

But I believe this goes deep, deep, deep into the recesses of Bryant’s inner superstar. It’s as if the Id, Ego and Super-Ego are all fighting over a loose ball, but none of them gets it.

Frustration.

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First it should be noted that this suspension was just as imbecilic as the last one. The league is so consumed with image and administering punishment whenever a video clip gets on ESPN and YouTube that it ends up acting like basketball’s version of the Taliban. If NBA heads start ordering Violet Palmer to wear a striped burka to work, you’ll know they’ve gone too far.

The issue isn’t whether Bryant’s smacks were intentional or unintentional, but rather the importance of applying common sense when viewing them in context. Both acts came about in the frenzy of the moment, during competition. They did not occur out of anger or malice aforethought.

The league seems now to consider any blow to the face to warrant a one-game suspension. So apparently if a big man pulls down a rebound and accidentally clocks an opposing guard in the forehead, that’s a one-game suspension. If a defender is guarding a dribbler one-one-one, takes a swipe at the ball and hits the opponent in the chin, it’s a one-game suspension.

As a result, fans should exercise caution when buying tickets, because at this rate there’s probably a 35 percent or so chance their favorite player will be serving a suspension when they want to seem him play.

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But it would be foolish to dismiss the deeper meaning of these incidents. Perhaps the reason Bryant has had two of these in such a short span of time is that he’s losing, and as a result he’s losing it.

Again, the incidents themselves are of the patty cake variety and don’t warrant punitive action by the league. Yet they are indicative of a player with a lot of competitive fire who is trying to fight harder to compensate for the lack of fight in his teammates.

Last season, the Lakers came close to pulling an upset of the Phoenix Suns in the first round, but instead finished out the way they probably should have, with an opening-round exit after a spirited effort.

Naturally, the expectation each year is to improve, so Bryant and the Lakers probably figured they’d reach the conference semifinals this season at least. It hasn’t worked out that way. Injuries, especially those to Lamar Odom, Kwame Brown and Luke Walton, have kept the team from generating any momentum. These Lakers will earn a playoff bid likely in the sixth, seventh or eighth spots in the West, but even at full strength it’s doubtful they’d be talented and efficient enough to knock off Dallas, Phoenix or San Antonio.

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