Aside from the luxury tax burden, it’s a beautiful move.

In Los Angeles, though, Kobe will look at it like any other obsessed athlete. He’ll wonder how it will affect him. He won’t have to wonder for long.

The Suns were one of the Lakers’ chief obstacles to postseason glory. L.A. lost to Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs the last two years. That tends to irritate like a bone spur for the average Laker. In the case of Kobe, it is the stuff of late-night pacing and nightmares.

Now that Shaq is in Phoenix, Kobe likely has mixed feelings. He welcomes such a challenge, yet he probably wonders why he has to be put in a position where he may be foiled by an old enemy — especially after everything was looking so promising.

The Lakers beat the New Jersey Nets Tuesday night, 105-90, in Gasol’s debut with his new team. He had 24 points and 12 rebounds, a performance that suggests the triangle offense may be overrated as a graduate level course. It was a night in which Bryant had only six points — his first single-digit output in more than a year — but it didn’t matter, because Laker Nation suddenly is a land of prosperity. And when the club gets young center Andrew Bynum back next month, this franchise will be strutting.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

But the reason the Lakers were in the dumper, and needed to rebuild, which caused Kobe to go on radio stations and demand a trade last spring, was the fact that they shipped Shaq to Miami and handed the keys to the building to Kobe. Before Bynum’s breakout this season and the recent Gasol trade, that appeared to be a dunderheaded move.

It seems fitting then that Shaq is back in the Western Conference to try and lift the Suns and sink his old team. The Shaq-Kobe storyline is alive and well, after an annoying period of détente. These two storied antagonists belong together, whether it be in the same lockerroom or in the same conference.

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