Old-Look Lakers Try New Approach

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">I don't know if Kobe Bryant has read the book his coach gave him for this road trip. My intuition tells me he hasn't.

Once he gets around to it, Bryant is likely to find a few more reasons why this reunion with Phil Jackson can work.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is Jackson's gift to Bryant this holiday season. The book has to do with rapid cognition and intuitive thought. It's about what information to discard and what to keep.

I'm thinking those who believe that Bryant and Jackson will fail cling to information that should be discarded. I'm thinking the focus should be on where these two and the Los Angeles Lakers want to go, not on the factors that ripped them apart earlier.

Holding onto a title is much different than working your way up to one. Coaches and players on top are less willing to compromise. A spirit of unity that once existed is fragmented by self-importance. When conflicts arise, each side is less likely to back down or admit fault.

This dynamic no longer exists. The Lakers team that faces the Mavericks tonight at 7:30 at American Airlines Center hasn't won a championship in three and a half years. It didn't make the playoffs last season and is hovering around .500.

Bryant and Jackson have huge egos. But ask yourself this: are those egos about making themselves look better, or are they tied to winning? You can argue that Bryant's and Jackson's drive for success is the reason both often come off looking bad.

Two men at odds as the Lakers championship foundation crumbled now share common ground in building the franchise back up. It must be a collaborative effort because both are aware it can't be done without the other.

That's not to say there won't be friction. Jackson has taken several swipes at Bryant this season about his shot selection. I would argue anyone who averages 33 shots, as Bryant did over a recent seven-game stretch, isn't selective at all and has no faith in his teammates.

This is a tough one for Bryant. He has a hard time accepting players who aren't as serious and driven as he is, which, from what I can tell, is just about everyone. Part of Bryant's rift with Shaquille O'Neal can be traced to his belief that O'Neal didn't practice hard enough and wasn't professional enough.

Jackson can give the players around Bryant responsibility. But if Bryant doesn't include his teammates, it's not going to work. Developing a relationship with them is just as important as forging one with Jackson.

"I think it will be harder for Kobe because he's such a high-strung competitor," said San Antonio forward Robert Horry, a part of those Lakers championship teams with Bryant and Jackson. "It's going to be really hard for him.

"If you see him as much as I did in practice, how he wants to compete, how he gets mad when he lost in practice and wouldn't talk to people for a couple of days because he lost. ... He's such a competitor."

Jackson has a lot at stake as well. The coach/author has now branched out into the radio world with his own show on Sirius.

"Hell no," O'Neal said when asked if he's caught Jackson's show. "I'm not going to listen to that crap."

It doesn't matter that Jackson has won nine NBA championships. Wisdom can turn to crap pretty quickly if a team doesn't win.

Jackson called Bryant uncoachable in his book. Bryant once said he respected Jackson but didn't like him.

None of that matters now. There is no O'Neal in the middle ? literally and figuratively ? to alter the relationship. These two have to come together.

It will work for the same reason Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells have worked for the Cowboys. They need each other to win another championship.

In the book Jackson gave Bryant, that's called throwing out what is unimportant and zeroing in on what really matters.

"Both of them are great at what they do," Horry said. "They can set egos aside and come together. </div>

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Another well written article on the Kobe-Phil-Laker dynamic.