Lakers are getting better with each victory
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Jackson, among others, was convinced he would never see this day. For one thing, there was hardly any assurance that the Lakers would be good for anyone else to be deemed “Valuable” to anything. For another, Bryant had become perhaps the most polarizing figure in a Lakers history filled with complex characters. Now the unrepentant soloist had made himself over into the team’s touchstone, with a colossal assist from Mitch Kupchak, the general manager he’d campaigned against.
You want drama? This team should play at least one game a year at South Coast Repertory.
But, having coached previous MVPs Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, Jackson contemplated the precarious life of an NBA Brand Name.
“I blame it on you guys, really,” Jackson told the reporters, not entirely jokingly. “The great players wind up having to develop a hard shell.”
Bryant, of course, was considered the Machiavelli behind the O’Neal trade in 2004, and then there was the Colorado affair, and the passive-aggressive display at the end of Game 7 against Phoenix in 2006, and his summerlong tantrum this time.
“I really think people had washed their hands of Kobe,” Jackson said, “after the breakup of our team (in ’04). They now looked at him with disdain and it was going to take a long time to recover from that.”
Only quarterbacks, goaltenders and Alex Rodriguez are exclusively blamed for playoff failures the way the NBA’s leading men are.
In Minnesota, Kevin Garnett was judged too reticent. In Houston, Tracy McGrady is known as Mr. One-and-Done.
In Cleveland, LeBron James caught an alarming amount of flak for passing to open teammates against Detroit last year, even though that’s a basic basketball fundamental. Then James backhandedly proved the critics right by slamming Detroit with 48 points in Game 6.
Dallas’ collapse against Golden State was a team and franchise effort, but the bricks of criticism fell mostly on Dirk Nowitzki. And O’Neal and Wilt Chamberlain were haunted by their own playoff stumblings, plus those of their teammates.
Bryant is also following a rich tradition of diva behavior. The world has forgotten that Magic Johnson went abracadabra and got Paul Westhead fired. Jason Kidd pried open the trapdoor for Byron Scott in New Jersey (gee, how’s THAT working out?). Karl Malone set a Western Hemisphere record for number of renegotiated contracts. Isiah Thomas was not exactly low-maintenance.
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It’s much harder to find a prominent NBA franchise that always ran harmoniously on and off the court. The ’04 Pistons? Yeah, but they were an ensemble, like the ’70 and ’73 Knicks.
The Celtics and Lakers of the '80s? Their stars were different. They had a league to revive and they were pitted almost solely against each other. Besides, Johnson and Larry Bird were surrounded by stars themselves, guys with presence who weren’t afraid to burst a bulging ego.
Within that frame, Bryant’s behavior over the years hasn’t been out of context. Just more grandiose, like everything else he does. We never realized we’d get old watching him grow up before our eyes, but we have and he has, and we’ve lived long enough to hear Bryant say that he wouldn’t be what he is without the other Lakers around him. Then the game starts, and he demonstrates that the vice is versa.
He now is with a club of which he is happy to be a member. Quite a trip: from grouchy to Groucho.
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