NBA: Everyone is happy in Tinseltown
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-19 08:58
Credit Bryant for most of that. He's the dominant player in the game and will
end the season as the first player since Michael Jordan in 1987-88 to average 35
points or more.
Give a big assist to Jackson, too, who called Bryant uncoachable in his book
yet somehow found a way to coach him when the Lakers offered him $10 million a
year to come back.
Not that Jackson has spent much time coaching Bryant. The Zen philosopher now
seems to have a new philosophy ¡ª let Bryant do what he wants and hope Lamar Odom
and a generic collection of understudies pick up enough of the slack for the
Lakers to pull out a win.
Jackson barely batted an eye when Bryant scored 81 points in January to lead
the Lakers to a win over Toronto.
"It's not exactly the way you want to have a team win a game, but when you
have to win a game, it's great to have that weapon to be able to do that,"
Jackson.
Bryant will have to score and then score some more if the Lakers have any
hope of making it out of the first round of the playoffs. He may be the leading
candidate for league MVP, but, unlike Steve Nash, he doesn't seem to have either
the desire or the knack to make his teammates better at the same time.
That leaves the Lakers pretty much where they've been since training camp in
Hawaii ¡ª a one-man band with a superstar who never seems to bond completely with
his teammates.
The good news for the Lakers is they've won 10 of their last 13 and are
playing better than at any time this year. Odom has shown signs of coming out of
Bryant's large shadow a bit lately, Kwame Brown is beginning to be a presence on
the inside, and Luke Walton has filled in the gaps as a starter in recent games.
The bad news is they may not even be the best team in their own building (see
LA Clippers), and will likely end up facing the Phoenix Suns in the first round
of the playoffs.
That should bring a smile to the faces of network television executives
because the Lakers are still the biggest draw in the NBA and the series will
feature a head-to-head matchup of leading MVP candidates in Bryant and Nash.
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