Michael Ventre

Multiple sources close to the Lakers Tuesday suggested that Kobe Bryant may have burped. Television and radio stations in Los Angeles, as well as print media and bloggers, differed as to whether it was a full-throated belch or a barely audible baby croak, with some even claiming it was actually a hiccup.

When asked about the alleged burp, coach Phil Jackson said, “I can’t comment on that. We’re just playing basketball, that’s all we’re doing.” When asked if he expected Bryant to burp again, Jackson replied, “I can’t comment on that either.” Before getting into his car after practice, Bryant — obviously reluctant to confirm the burp rumor — refused to say, “Excuse me” or “Pardon me” and referred the matter to his agent.

What transpired Tuesday might as well have been a burp, a sneeze, a cough, a spilled can of soda, a car ding or sundry other mundane happenings that afflict humans on a daily basis. Of course, when something happens to Kobe Bryant in the context of his employment with the Lakers, no development is too insignificant.

On Tuesday, it was widely reported in the Los Angeles area that Bryant had cleaned out his locker. That created speculation that he was about to be traded. According to reports, some items did appear to be missing, and when pressed, Jackson even admitted that Bryant’s locker looked more spare than usual.

Here is a Hall of Fame basketball coach who is tied with Red Auerbach for NBA championships with nine and earns $10 million per season and he’s reduced to monitoring the item count in Bryant’s locker. This is what it’s come to.

This is not to ridicule those members of the Fourth Estate and their distant cousins on the lunatic fringe who ran with the burp, er, locker rumor. In fact, Lockergate comes on the heels of Bryant asking out of consecutive practices to rest his legs. And Jackson was cryptic even for him on Tuesday, turning a simple question about whether Bryant would accompany the team to Bakersfield Thursday for an exhibition game into the kind of stonewalling usually reserved for Justice Department attorneys testifying on Capitol Hill.

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The mood, the vibe, the climate, the sixth sense, all suggest something’s not copacetic in Laker Nation. The first clue came in the spring when Kobe appeared on every media outlet with an FCC license and a transmitter and blasted the organization for not doing enough to surround him with a championship-caliber team, a tirade that included calling owner Jerry Buss an “idiot” and mocking young center Andrew Bynum on an amateur video.

Then there was Buss himself, who last week dropped a bombshell by saying he would consider trading Kobe, that he would listen if the right offer came along, that nobody is untouchable. That was Buss assuming the Michael Corleone role and looking upon Kobe as brother Fredo. And we all know what happened to Fredo.

Buss’ statement was a declaration of war. He was letting everyone know that when Bryant told the world he felt betrayed by Buss, the Lakers owner thus felt betrayed back. Buss is known as an aging playboy, an avid poker player, a quiet lover of life who enjoys presiding over the Lakers but who is content to sit in a luxury box high atop the hardwood with a bevy of beauties and a shaker full of cocktails and let his basketball people run the show — with his input, of course.

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