Much like Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant should have picked an individual sport. Tennis, golf, something that would have left him all alone with that blind commitment to himself.
He is not wired to share the ball, or the stage, or the spoils that go to the winning team. Bryant doesn't want to be the star of the Lakers; he wants to be the Lakers.
Kobe ran out Shaquille O'Neal and Phil Jackson, and would have gladly run out Jerry Buss and Jack Nicholson if he could've diagrammed a way to do it. After a 34-48 season in 2004-05, Bryant had no choice but to take Jackson back. The Lakers haven't made it out of the first round of the playoffs since.
He created his own mess, Kobe did, and now he's sick of looking at it. Tuesday night, after being booed on introduction, Bryant scored 45 opening-night points in — what else? — a loss to a better-balanced team.
The Rockets had four players in double figures, the Lakers two. The home team made a rousing comeback to nearly steal the game, but Houston's Tracy McGrady delivered a nice dish to a lesser talent, Shane Battier, who sank the deciding 3-pointer.
Kobe would end up storming off the floor after a ref refused to give him a cheap foul on an intentionally missed free throw, but his frustration was flowing deeper than an 0-1 start.
In a Western Conference loaded with heavyweights, Bryant knows his team packs no punch.
He knows his Lakers stink.
And yes, they are his Lakers, all his. No matter how often Jerry West or Magic Johnson or anyone else talked to him about making peace with Shaq way back when, about the need to suit up at least two superstars in order to win a title, Bryant wouldn't listen.
"I'm tired of being a sidekick," Jackson quoted him as saying in the his book, The Last Season, the same book that had the coach describing Bryant as "uncoachable."
The Lakers chose Kobe over Shaq. On the rebound, O'Neal built a blissful partnership with Dwyane Wade and won another title to go with the three he claimed with Bryant.
Kobe? His unhappiness had compelled the Lakers to make a terrible deal with the Heat. Somehow, some way, Mitch Kupchak traded away one of the most dominant big men of all time and didn't even land Miami's best player in return.
Then with Shaq's blood on his hands, Kobe re-upped for $136 million.
Surrounded by mediocrities, Bryant can score 45 like he did Tuesday night, or he can score 81 like he did two seasons back. Michael Jordan couldn't crack 70, never mind 80. It's a hell of an accomplishment for a two guard.
But it didn't get Bryant anywhere closer to that championship he's dying to win without Shaq's help. In fact, he's given up on the whole idea. Bryant wants to be traded, and this time around, the Lakers will be damned if they don't get back something approximating equal value.
Jackson said he wants the Kobe saga resolved "sooner than later," and sooner likely means a deal to Chicago, where Bryant can have intimate conversations with Michael Jordan's statue on his way into the gym.
Kobe always wanted to be like Mike, as shown by that scene of Bryant hugging his first championship trophy in a weepy, Jordan-like embrace. To this day, if you close your eyes hard enough when Bryant speaks, you swear you are listening to Jordan himself.
Only Jordan was smart enough to play ball with Scottie Pippen — together they won half a dozen titles. Instead of a 50 percent cut of a Laker dynasty, Bryant preferred a 100 percent cut of a first-round flop.
Now Kobe and the Lakers are desperately searching for the right exit strategy. Bryant most certainly wants to go, and his employer most certainly wants him gone.
"Obviously, he hasn't thrown his heart and soul into performing on the floor," Jackson said before the season opener. Asked by reporters for specifics, the coach added, "Mentally getting himself here and playing hard. ... Is that a surprise to you guys? I mean, I'm not breaking new news."
Bryant's response? "That (should be) the least of his concerns or anybody's concerns. ... You don't have to worry about me."
Except that worrying about Kobe has become a full-time occupation. This is the man who once said he trusted his teammates, but trusted himself more. This is the guy who wouldn't shoot the ball in a sudden-death playoff game against the Suns. This is the employee who did a series of interviews demanding a trade, and who mocked his GM and a teammate, Andrew Bynum, for a couple of strangers packing a cell-phone camera.
Finally, the Staples Center fans let him have it. "I understand where they're coming from," Bryant was quoted by the Associated Press, "but they really don't know the entire situation because I just keep my mouth shut, as I should."
"Business a lot of times can cloud the game and take the fun out of the game if you allow it to," Bryant said. "And that's something that I won't allow to happen."
At the 1996 draft, business compelled Bryant to bluff his way out of New Jersey and into Hollywood. His agent, Arn Tellem, and sneaker benefactor, Sonny Vaccaro, told the Nets their client would play in Italy if they had the nerve to pick him.
The Nets blinked at No. 8, Bryant fell to Charlotte at No. 13, and the Lakers sent Vlade Divac to the Hornets in a pre-arranged trade. Soon enough, the teenager said hello to the world by passing the ball to himself at his first All-Star Game.
Bryant put on quite a show in L.A. for 11 years, and now he wants to take his act east. "Get a Bulls uniform, fellas," Kobe said on that cell-phone video.
Either way, Bryant's going to the Hall of Fame. Best of luck finding a teammate to make that induction speech.
