It was only three-plus months ago that Kobe Bryant shook his head in Oklahoma City during the final moments of a Lakers loss and made an uncharacteristic reach into his past in order to build himself up in the present.
Bryant responded to some ardent on-court celebration from James Harden by talking down to Thunder upstarts Kevin Durant and Harden.
“Maybe one day they’ll be able to sit at my lunch table,” Bryant said after that game. “Right now, we’re at two different lunch tables.”
While accepting he is an upperclassman in basketball-life terms, Bryant isn’t nearly ready to close his record book.
Even as fans focus on the TMZ report about his marriage being on the mend – Bryant was seen at Disneyland with wife Vanessa on June 2 – he has powerhouse crisis-management rep Mike Sitrick to handle all the interest in that personal story.
Professionally, Bryant is already on it again.
He is believed to be in Germany for another round of innovative treatment on his right knee that was so improved by Peter Wehling’s blood-spinning procedure a year ago at the Orthogen labs in Dusseldorf. Lakers spokesman John Black said the club was unaware of Bryant’s timetable but had been involved in his plans for the treatment again this offseason.
It’s logical Bryant wants to be at his best for Olympic play this summer – and if you know him you know he wants to be at his best already when he reports to USA Basketball camp in Las Vegas in less than a month (July 5) to begin competing in practices with and against Durant, Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James – all of whom can still win this NBA title.
Humility, never Bryant’s preferred dance partner, has already been begrudgingly embraced since Durant, Harden and Westbrook were behind the Lakers’ five-game second-round elimination by Oklahoma City last month.
Remember that Bryant similarly tried to put James in his place in 2010 before James’ free-agent move to Miami, with Bryant telling James that he should go find a nice place to live and win more MVPs while Bryant and the Lakers collected their next championship. Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks, though, beat Bryant first and then James to get that gold in 2011.
A year later, the NBA looks even readier to move on without Bryant, 33.
The world has never seen a Kobe vs. LeBron championship clash, and apparently it really doesn’t have to.
Even at the height of Shaq vs. Kobe drama and with Hall of Fame additions Karl Malone and Gary Payton trying to restore the Lakers to glory, ABC didn’t draw as many viewers for an NBA Finals opener as it did Tuesday night.
Game 1 of the Heat-Thunder (or James-Durant) series brought home an 11.8 overnight rating, breaking the record of 11.6 set in 2004 by the Pistons-Lakers opener at Staples Center.
The Thunder won Game 1 at home, which the Lakers failed to do with Malone and Payton combining to miss all their shots in the first half against Detroit. The Lakers were expected to roll through the no-name Pistons, but many of the viewers tuning in then were very much hoping to see the Lakers fall. A 25-year-old Bryant played 47 of the 48 minutes that night to no avail.
It’s quite possible there is greater disdain for James now as he tries to shed his loser tag than there ever has been for spoiled winners Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant combined. But James is hardly Bryant’s concern these days.
For Bryant even to reach another NBA Finals, he will have to keep discovering clock-turning-back medicine and get some visionary help from Lakers management and coaches in order to overcome Oklahoma City in the Western Conference.
It hasn’t previously been acknowledged, but Bryant did have his private season-ending exit meeting with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak – a week and a half after all the other players’ meetings.
Bryant and Kupchak got together for a Sunday breakfast meeting – the very day after Kobe’s Disneyland jaunt with Vanessa – to huddle on how to get that next championship amid the economic realities facing the Lakers under the new collective bargaining agreement.
Lakers vice president Jim Buss, who was around the office that first day of player exit meetings in late May but did not sit in with Kupchak and head coach Mike Brown for any of those meetings, did not join Bryant and Kupchak either. Brown also did not attend the June 3 meeting between Bryant and Kupchak.
But one thing the Lakers do figure to have moving forward is better on-court strategy and execution with a longer training camp and more practice time to put Phil Jackson’s era behind them. After that February “lunch table” loss in Oklahoma City, Bryant criticized Brown’s staff for not getting Bryant, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol enough easy shots the way Durant got them.
“They’ve got to make our jobs a little easier,” Bryant said about the Lakers’ coaches. “We have to work too hard to get points going up against defenses that are sending double teams at us. … Oklahoma does a fantastic job of it. They do a great job putting KD in the right place, and he doesn’t have to work too much.”
Cocky comments aside, Bryant actually has considerable respect for the young Thunder: “Three of my favorite players in the league on that team.”
And much of the respect stems from the fact that Durant and Harden dare to think they can sit at Bryant’s table. Westbrook? He’s the one who, most like Bryant, will steal your lunch money, too.
“That’s a bad little dude, man,” Bryant said. “He’s got the same type of dog that I had in me – that I still have in me – when I was coming up, playing with Shaq. He’s got the same fight.”
So you see Bryant’s challenge when it comes to the Thunder.
And why he’ll just keep traveling to the ends of the earth in search of more lightning in his bottle.
