You might’ve forgotten, and Kobe Bryant almost has by now, but the Lakers broke through for a championship not too long ago … and had some trouble when they reconvened for the first time to defend it.

It was the 2000-01 season, and it was the first time Bryant’s feud with Shaquille O’Neal spread to the public consciousness.

O’Neal had a traditional plan that they could just replay the previous season; Bryant came back with new muscles to flex. Two-and-a-half months into the schedule, they were sniping through the media about Bryant overdoing his offense and O’Neal dogging it on defense.

The issue, as described back then by one Phil Jackson, was this about Bryant: “Some nights he’s in balance. Some nights it’s over the edge with trying to find how he can do a little bit better.”

In the end, Bryant hiked his scoring average from 22.5 points to 28.5 (more than he averaged in either of the past two seasons, by the way) and infused the Lakers with a fire they needed to become a far better team.

They did win that second consecutive championship (and a third), and an awed O’Neal ultimately said during the Lakers’ 15-1 postseason run: “I can truly say that Kobe Bryant is the best player in the league.”

Nine years later, Bryant has been around the world more than a few times, in every conceivable respect. Something at the core remains unchanged.

“Our focus is on just getting better,” Bryant said Tuesday. “It’s not really on replicating what we did last year. It’s a new season. Players have come back better, stronger, healthier, wanting to prove something in their own game. So our team is going to be different.”

Right there is how the 2009-10 Lakers are ahead of the game compared to the 2000-01 Lakers. Bryant understands how Andrew Bynum is determined to make his first All-Star team.

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How Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic and Shannon Brown have careers to establish. How ringless Ron Artest is different from everyone else here.

“Everybody brings their own hunger,” Artest said before the first practice. “I definitely need some jewelry, and that starts today.”

Long before Khloe Kardashian somehow got on three different reality TV shows, O’Neal would say the NBA was actually an acronym for “Nothing But Actors.” And it’s true that anyone who wants to shine in an atmosphere this competitive must constantly ask himself: “What’s my motivation?”

If your motivation slips — as is human nature after a success as golden as hoisting that trophy — then you aren’t going to be winning again unless you’re way, way better than everyone else.

With Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio and Orlando lurking out there, the Lakers do not stand alone.

“You’ve got to want it really, really bad,” Pau Gasol said. “More than last year. Staying hungrier than the rest of the teams, that’s going to be the key.”

Gasol has replaced O’Neal as the Lakers’ other star, and Gasol’s resume has quickly grown thicker than his beard ever does. In succession, he played to the end of the 2008 NBA Finals, 2008 Olympics, 2009 NBA Finals and 2009 European championships. “Winning two of them,” Gasol pointed out.

For every Lakers fan who logically wished for Spain to go abajo over the summer in that Eurobasket tourney and save Gasol’s spindly legs all that extra effort, the fact that he dug deep yet again and won Spain its first European title is pretty impressive stuff.

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He tapped into something new in himself, defending the opposition’s best interior threat and averaging three blocks per game – and it is beyond time to concede that this guy has some real drive from within.

Bynum is well aware that Jackson wants better defense from him, too. Bynum’s statistical goal for the season is to average a double-double, which means his primary area for improvement from last season (14.3 points, 8.0 rebounds) is on the boards.

Bynum is also so eager to prove he can stay healthy that he will wear at least one protective knee brace and intends to begin the small preventative steps in treatment that professional team leaders Bryant and Derek Fisher have so well mastered.

Artest’s mission, meanwhile, is sometimes all his own, but in this case all you need to know is that he humbly walked into the locker room at the Lakers’ training facility and without asking anyone just put his stuff in Trevor Ariza’s old locker.

Artest knows his basic place on this team, and it’s to fit in.

Yet the beauty in all this for the Lakers is that Bryant, if he is a man of his aforementioned word, will not let Artest settle for just that. The same goes for Lamar Odom, should he begin to rest on his new contract or marriage license.

Word out of Houston that Bryant recently solicited a tutorial on mid-post moves from Hakeem Olajuwon is the latest show of Bryant’s ongoing commitment to the cause.

It’s what those deep conversations with Michael Jackson about perfecting their arts were all about. More can always await, even for the already great … more points, more skills, more championships.

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