Artest puts everything in jeopardy for Lakers

It’s one thing to admire Artest’s fiery personality and competitive edge from afar, and also to do so when playing against him. It’s quite another to share the same locker room with him. Kobe will have to keep Artest in line. He’ll have to talk Artest down when he is jawing uncontrollably with an official. He’ll have to work to raise his confidence when his mood swings the wrong way.

It can’t be understated how important chemistry is on a team contending for a championship. Chemistry doesn’t mean everybody has to play softball and eat pizza together, but it does mean that everybody has to find a way to put aside ego and personality quirks and work together for the common good.

Artest has always been that guy out on an island. He’s likable enough, but for every smile and joke he offers he also seems to create a distraction.

Bryant has been spoiled, because he never has had to deal with anything like Artest. The friction with Kobe and Shaq was largely over control of the team’s direction; for all of the big man’s bluster, he isn’t a lunatic and he hasn’t gotten in trouble with the law or even the NBA office.

Last season was as copacetic as it has ever been for Kobe in the NBA. He had the perfect mix of agreeable veterans and hungry youngsters, and they all looked to him for leadership, which he provided in bushels. The Lakers came off the loss in the 2008 NBA finals to the Celtics with intense determination to come back and win it this year, and that they did.

But now Kobe, for perhaps the first time in his career, will have to babysit. He likes Artest, even though the two have often had brutal Ali-Frazier-like confrontations on the hardwood. Yet there is a faint resemblance to the Carson Palmer-Chad Ochocinco relationship looming: It’s one thing to share the ball, it’s quite another to invite him to live in your home.

It’s not an exact analogy, but the essential elements of possible doom exist.

Kobe and the Lakers have invited Artest into the sacred bosom of their family. A lot of families have survived the presence of a crazy person in their midst. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

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