Kid Kobe could kill dreams of dynasty in LA

[Vinny Natale <vnatale@map.com>]

NBA
Kid Kobe could kill dreams of dynasty in LA
Barbara Barker

THEY'RE TALKING dynasty in Los Angeles. They're talking a fist-full of rings.

Forget the "threepeat" that Pat Riley trademarked but was never able to 
pull off with the Lakers in the late 1980s. These Lakers are talking about 
winning four, five, six-a decade full of championships.

And why not? Shaquille O'Neal, the NBA Finals MVP for the second straight 
year, is 29 years old. Kobe Bryant, who was compared with Michael Jordan 
entering the Finals, is 23.

Nothing, short of Jordan and the fountain of youth, can stop these Lakers.

Nothing, that is, except for themselves, which we saw this season can be a 
pretty formidable foe.

Though the Kobe-Shaq feud has been declared over, there is ample reason to 
believe it is not. Did you see Bryant during O'Neal's MVP award ceremony? 
Probably not. That's because while Shaq was being hugged by his teammates 
and sprayed with champagne, Bryant was off in the corner giving a 
television interview and crafting his own image.

Image is very important to Bryant. He might not be the MVP of the 
basketball world, but he is the MVP of Madison Avenue, as he makes more 
money in endorsements than any other NBA player.

Bryant has a nice smile, a great game and what appears to be a big problem 
playing Scottie Pippen to O'Neal's Michael Jordan.

Any doubters just had to sit in on the end of Bryant's news conference 
Thursday. With his team on the cusp of winning its second consecutive 
championship, Bryant gave some very telling answers to a series of softball 
questions: Question: "It looks like you and Shaq could win four or five 
more titles together. Do you ever think about that?" Bryant: "Sometimes, 
when I go to sleep at night, I start dreaming a little bit. All that's 
fine. All that seems well right now. And we're happy to be winning until 
next January, when people start talking about trading one of us." Question: 
"Is Shaq in your dreams?" Bryant: "Excuse me?" Question: "Is Shaq in your 
dreams?" Bryant: "He's too big. He don't fit." Clearly, the Lakers No. 8 is 
having a problem being No. 2. And that's a shame because the Lakers have a 
chance to do something special here, and the rest of the team knows it.

"We'd like to be the team to make America forget about the Yankees," L.A.

forward Rick Fox said. "You've seen what the Yankees have done, what the 
Bulls did in the 1990s. The pieces are here for the team to improve and get 
better." O'Neal is the key piece of the puzzle; he's an unparalleled blend 
of size and athleticism. Shaq averaged 33 points, 15.8 rebounds and 3.4 
blocks in the Finals. He also squeezed out a stunning accolade from 76ers 
coach Larry Brown.

"[He] is as good as they get," Brown said of O'Neal. "I've never seen a 
better player in my life." Bryant, who is under contract until the end of 
the 2003-04 season, will remain the second-best player on his team as long 
as O'Neal is wearing the same uniform.

Though he took special care balancing egos throughout the season, coach 
Phil Jackson knows who is the No. 1 player on his team. O'Neal has always 
been criticized for being too passive a leader. Jackson said that changed 
this season.

"Shaq was the dominant player," Jackson said. "He was the guy that was the 
motivator and the energizer for our team." After Game 1 of this series, the 
Lakers' only postseason loss, Jackson sat down with O'Neal. The center 
scored a monster 44 points in that game but had no blocked shots. Jackson 
pointed to the zero.

 From then on, O'Neal was a monster in the middle, blocking 17 shots in 
four games.

O'Neal has been acquainted with failure; he never lived up to expectations 
in Orlando and initially had a hard time getting things going in Los Angeles.

Bryant's short NBA career, on the other hand, includes little struggle. 
Because of that-because Bryant seems so unsettled as a world champion-the 
Lakers may have problems fulfilling their great and vast potential.

A comment by Bryant said it all Friday night. After O'Neal had talked about 
"being greedy" and coming back to win four or five titles, Bryant was asked 
if he thought the team had a chance to become "a dynasty." "Winning a first 
championship is like a honeymoon," Bryant said. "You just have to prove to 
everybody that we could do it. This time around, we went through so much 
adversity, so many ups and downs. It feels good to win it. You have mixed 
emotions.

"But as far as a dynasty, I don't know. We just have to take our time and 
see what happens." Mixed emotions about winning an NBA championship? That's 
probably a hard pill for a player such as Allen Iverson to swallow. Iverson 
is a great player on a Sixers team with no other great players, and because 
of that, he did not win an NBA title.

Someday, Bryant may be in his shoes.