<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Bryant has been picking up the remnants of his shattered image since 2003, and though his popularity still wanes in some NBA precincts, his makeover has accelerated along with Laker fortunes this season. The boos have subsided for the most part, although San Antonio and Sacramento still get a little boisterous, and Philadelphia will never let its native son forget his roots, showering Kobe Bryant with the same rude greeting its fans offered Santa Claus one unforgettable football Sunday. Bryant has moved forward from a year ago, when the Lakers staggered to a 34-48 record, and has become the face of a team pushing for a playoff spot believed possible by only a handful of pundits before the season. If last year's Bryant was driven and demanding, this year's edition might be more so, playing with an edge and impelling teammates to follow along his way, for richer or poorer. He hit for 62 points in three quarters against Dallas, then upped the ante with 81 in four against Toronto, maneuvering the Lakers toward a likely playoff appearance and witnessing an uptick to his image, which was shredded after sexual assault charges were brought against him in July 2003. Bryant still declines to answer questions about the Eagle, Colo., incident, doing so twice in an interview with The Times, but he provided some insight into the importance of image, how he feels about the direction of the Lakers and what makes him push and pull on teammates. "That's how I am," Bryant said. "I'm more determined than my opposition all the time. What you see from us as a team, what you see from us when we play now, we play with that edge." To watch Bryant work is to witness an athlete dominate a craft with nary a smile ? every possession personal, every miss to be scrutinized later on tape. He steps on the court with a scowl, rarely changes expression except to plead his case to referees, and then concludes games with the same glower, even if his final shot is the winning one. He gave notice during a preseason practice, booting a water bottle across the court when the team couldn't make enough free throws to end a conditioning drill. Since then, he toppled a TV monitor and yelled at Lamar Odom after a last-second loss to Washington in December and, more recently, gave second-year guard Sasha Vujacic a healthy shove on the bench during a home loss to hapless Seattle. Bryant says he sees results. "You see it from Kwame [Brown], Sasha, Lamar, all the guys," Bryant said. "They play with that chip. "Since training camp ? I've been pushing them all the time to play that way just by being hard on them, being tough on them?. When you go into a hostile environment when the playoffs come up, you have to be able to respond to optimum pressure situations. In practice, I'll talk a lot. I'll put the pressure on them and try to get them to look within themselves and get confidence in themselves to come through in those situations. "And then when they come through, you've got to pat them on the back. You've got to let them know, and I think they understand how I am. They understand that that's my leadership style. There's a million different ways to be a leader, many different forms of it. This is the way I go about it." Bryant's first season without Shaquille O'Neal was characterized by a constellation of spats as the burden of a franchise in transition weighed heavily on 26-year-old shoulders. Left in Bryant's wake last season were tiffs with former teammate Karl Malone, Seattle SuperSonic All-Star guard Ray Allen, then-teammate Chucky Atkins, and a season-long barrage of cross-country insults delivered from O'Neal's new Miami address. This season, Bryant has waged a tug-of-war with referees ? only Rasheed Wallace of Detroit has more than his 14 technical fouls ? and he received a two-game suspension from the league for elbowing Memphis guard Mike Miller on the chin in a December game. Laker fans have adored his efforts, chanting "M-V-P" at nearly every home game, and some members of the corporate world ? specifically, Nike ? have edged up to the Bryant trough, although others haven't always shared the love: The January edition of GQ magazine labeled Bryant the fifth most-hated athlete in pro sports, a few spots behind loquacious football star Terrell Owens and controversial slugger Barry Bonds. But the re-branding of Bryant was bolstered somewhat by his 81-point outburst in a 122-104 victory over Toronto on Jan. 22, a single-game effort surpassed only by Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game for the Philadelphia Warriors in March 1962. Nike, which signed Bryant to a five-year, $45-million endorsement deal in June 2003, a month before assault charges were brought against him, tested the waters last July with a two-page ad in Sports Illustrated. Nike then targeted February as a jumping-in point for Bryant's signature shoe, the Zoom Kobe I, with a "love me or hate me" commercial blitz during the All-Star break. The commercial was shot last summer at the Laker training facility in El Segundo with a script that was "basically how I felt at the time," Bryant said. "I think to a certain degree, it's something that everybody goes through. I just said it," he said. "A lot of people, whether it's a writer or a coach or whatever, certain people love your work, certain people don't like your work. In our position, people have a greater platform to criticize us." Sales of Bryant's shoe has been brisk, not at the level of LeBron James or the ever-popular Michael Jordan, but in the same sphere as Kevin Garnett and Carmelo Anthony, according to analyst Matt Powell of SportScan Info, a pro sports retail tracking firm. "Retailers signified it was a good start," Powell said. "I'd say it met expectations, for sure."</div> Source
