Season Preview Lakers

[KG-MVP21]

Number 8 is no more. Welcome to the age of 24.

Like only LA's glitziest franchise could do, their star player not only let out that he'd be effectively entering the sequel portion of his career, but he gave the world a sneak preview of what that sequel would be like last spring.

Like all good sequels, this one promises to take what was successful about the original and add to it. It will still provide all of the crowd-pleasing highlights we've come to expect, but now it'll come with a dose of character development. Kobe is still Kobe, but he's also Kobe Part II, number 24, and what that truly means remains to be seen.

Throughout last season, Kobe dominated teams offensively with an outrageous scoring pace that the league hasn't seen since the 80s. It caused one to wonder why Phil Jackson, who has written entire books about the supremacy of the team-oriented Triangle Offense, would come out of retirement to allow Kobe to dominate the scoring column the way Michael did when the Bulls were losing. Then at the start of the playoffs, Phil let it slip.

As it turns out, Jackson realized that this team was going to need more than a two-week training camp to pick up on all of the nuances of the complex offense he wanted to reintegrate with the Lakers, but at the same time he's still a competitor and wanted to make the playoffs just as much. So, he cut something of an informal deal with Bryant; you can play your way for the regular season, but you're gonna play my way in the playoffs.

And play Phil's way he did, almost all the way to a first-round upset of the Pacific Division champion Phoenix Suns. He was so committed to the cause that when his teammates crumbled under the pressure of a 3-1 series lead, Kobe made the very unpopular choice to continue giving the ball up to try and get his teammates going again.

I'm not going to get into whether or not that was a wise choice or not because that argument has been done to death. What I will point out is that when this team was clicking in the Triangle, it clicked well. Not as well as the times it has lead to a Championship, obviously, but it gave Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant a reason for optimism.

This year will mark the second phase of Kobe's career. The one where he supposedly goes from being a me-first prima donna who cares only for himself and his legacy to being a leader, a guy who cares as much for the team as he does for himself and someone who will fight for Laker success over Kobe success when the need arises. Without avoiding the obvious, he's going to follow Michael's example and learn to play within a team rather than above it.

I'm going to say it straight out: I don't know if he can do it. I think he can, and he has all of the talents and resources to be able to do it, but I am not willing to go on record and say that without a doubt Kobe Bryant, version 24, will become a true team player. It's one thing to do it for seven games, and it's another to do it for seven years, or however long Kobe expects to play for.

Kobe is the best basketball player in the world, and more than any other player he can bend the game to his will. The knock Phil Jackson has always hung on him is that he never knew how to use his talents to make the team better. In the 90s Michael was able to survey a game and know where he could be most effective, and that's the place Kobe has to get to if he wants to achieve a legacy anywhere near that of Jordan's. It's beyond a choice he can make each night, it has to become his instinct, and that's why I'm not putting money down either way just yet. Kobe has always had complete control over his own fortunes, and now it's time to see if he can have an equal effect on the fortunes of his team.

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP

PG - Smush Parker

It's a good thing the Triangle doesn't require a prototypical point guard to run the offence, but rather five pseudo-point guards, because Parker couldn't make a good decision with the ball if he was wired to Jackson for the whole game. Parker, by his own admission, is out there for himself, for his own glory, for his own pocketbook. When he was asked last season what his motivation was that got him to be the starting point guard for one of the league's most storied franchises, he bluntly said that it was the money that drove him, the money he feels he deserves. I've always been of the mind that the guys who go out there and play their game and work on their game and improve their game are the guys who don't need to worry about getting the money they deserve. It might be na?ve of me to think so, but all the same it makes it that much harder for me to root for such an average player like Parker who played as well in LA in 06 as he did in Cleveland in 02.

SG - Kobe Bryant

There isn't anything that I could write about Kobe Bryant that hasn't already been said a thousand times. If he can pull off this transition in his game, he might be among the only members of his generation of stars (along with Garnett and Duncan) who were part of the ushering in of the new brand of team-first ball rather than being one of the members of his generation that was made obsolete by it.

SF - Vlad Radmonovic

Aside from a trade that brought in Maurice Evans, this signing represents the only real addition to this Lakers team. As GM Mitch Kupchak and Jackson saw it, the most glaring need on this team in the Triangle was players who could nail jumpers to keep the defense from double-teaming. The way the Triangle works is that the players are constantly passing and cutting, making it very difficult to double-team players because the help defense can't recover fast enough to this moving offense. This was a key reason Shaq was able to dominate so entirely in his time with the Lakers. However, if the team isn't hitting their shots, and they weren't last year outside of Bryant, then that strategy doesn't really hold muster because if a guy isn't a threat then who cares how tightly you contest him. Radmonovic is definitely a guy who can nail open jumpers and if he can learn the offense fast, you'll see why management didn't figure they'd need anything more than him to bolster this team going into the season.

PF - Lamar Odom

He never quite took on that Scottie Pippen role that the Lakers were hoping he'd adopt, but he definitely came on as the season progressed, especially in his role as point-forward. The team would love it if they could rely on him to score more than 15 per game this season, especially considering how high a percentage he shoots from two and three. He may never turn out to be the kind of spectacular player scouts anticipated in his early years with the Clippers, but as he gets older his basketball I.Q. is rising and he may be the kind of guy who sees his best years come after thirty, when he can match is amazing talent base with a seasoned, veteran mindset. There is no real knock to make against a guy like Odom, just a curiosity to see what maturity will mean to his developing game.

C - Kwame Brown

I'm not a believer yet, but I'm so close. After a horrid start to the year at power forward last season, some bench time, some missed games and move to centre really seemed to ignite Brown. Make no mistake, he is still learning the game, but he showed signs last season that the work that people have invested in him is finally starting to pay off. Anchoring him to the paint seemed to agree with his abilities and now we get to see what a full season there will do for him and his confidence. Like so many watchers I'm right there waiting to believe that he might just be for real, not the Garnett-to-be he was once christened, but a guy who has a reason to be in this league at all. We'll see.