Michael Ventre

LOS ANGELES - Kobe this, Kobe that.

Hey, the hype is justified. When it comes to these Western Conference finals, the best basketball player in the world is the center of the universe.

The Los Angeles Lakers will play host to the San Antonio Spurs tonight in Game 1 of a series many have been anticipating for … well, to be accurate, only since Feb. 1, when Pau Gasol came to L.A. and turned the Lakers from first-round chum into championship timber. But they’ve really been anticipating it a lot since then, even though other distractions (the New Orleans Hornets, for instance) may have interfered with the Lakers-Spurs buzz. It seemed almost like double-secret anticipation.

Kobe Bryant has been the Lakers’ go-to guy since Shaquille O'Neal became their go-away guy. And even before that, when the Lakers won three titles in 2000, '01 and '02, Kobe was burning up the net cords in clutch situations. The comparisons to Michael Jordan seemed absurd, until he starting nailing shots to help his teammates win rings.

But this is different. This is a whole new ballgame. It’s Kobe’s team, the one he wanted all along, the one he complained about not having last spring. It’s a "be-careful-what-you-wish-for" situation, although Kobe has been anything but careful when it comes to accepting challenges on the basketball court. He is the league’s preeminent piranha.

The Spurs represent the standard of excellence. They are not only the defending champions, they are annoyingly efficient and stubbornly good. They are a lot like the NFL's New England Patriots. In fact, if Gregg Popovich wore a hoodie and spied on opponents, the two clubs would be almost indistinguishable.

For all of his determination to win, there was a time just about a year ago when Kobe was determined to leave. He was furious that the Lakers' organization hadn't made the kind of headline moves that would thrust the club back into the championship picture. He called the owner an "idiot" and demanded a trade.

Mitch Kupchak, the Lakers’ general manager, acquired Derek Fisher, and then went out and committed grand larceny by obtaining Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies. Since then, the Lakers have sizzled.

Now is the real deal, for the Lakers and especially for Kobe. He is known around the league as a clutch player, so much so that even on the occasions when he fails to pull out a victory for his team in the closing moments, nobody holds it against him, because he has come through so many times before.

Yet for all his career accomplishments — 10 All-Star teams, three rings, one MVP trophy — the spotlight will never be more blinding than it will be in this series. He is expected to do nothing less than lead his team past the defending champions and into the NBA Finals.

It would have been different had the Hornets knocked off the Spurs. That would have pitted Kobe against a perceived underdog. It would have matched him (on the marquee) against Chris Paul, who is new to this whole Herculean thing. The Lakers would have played an upstart club that did not have the same cachet as the boring but brutal Spurs.

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