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Interactive Hang-Time News by Email Hoopchat Frequently Asked Questions Lakers double act threaten to break golden dream apart
One is a middle-aged veteran in the body of a 22 year old. The other is a 23 stone man-child who often acts up like a petulant kid. They have nothing in common but their ability to ability to play basketball at its highest level. But the question is whether Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal can concentrate on what brings them together rather than what sets them apart.
It all went so smoothly for the Los Angeles Lakers last season on the road to the NBA Championship. Bryant (left), the league's youngest and brightest star, matured to the tutelage of Phil Jackson and put his often breathtaking skills at the disposal of his team-mates rather than just himself. A system which suited O'Neal well, the seven foot centre ending as both the NBA's top scorer and Most Valuable Player, one vote shy of becoming the first unanimous choice for the award.
Sceptics predicted such harmony couldn’t last past the euphoric hug they exchanged in centre court last
June after the Indiana Pacers were despatched. It appears they were right. Bryant's single-minded drive to become the best basketballer ever has left O'Neal (right) in a king-sized sulk, the fragile chemistry which previously kept both focused on the same goal now upset.
Where before the Lakers were referred to as Shaq's team, now it is Kobe's. Where the ball went through the hands of the bigger man, it now flows squarely through that of his athletic colleague. Bryant, a shooting guard, presently leads the NBA in scoring at 29.6 points per game. O'Neal, by contrast, is averaging only 24.
A volte-face which has co-incided with a poor first half of the campaign for their team, their tally of 12 losses already higher than their entire count of the previous term. Such slips are more a symptom of a stronger field in the Western Conference than internal squabbles. But with two All-Stars fighting for their share of the ball, and the limelight, it is a situation which has left Jackson fuming.
"This is juvenile stuff," he called it. "It's like sandbox stuff. 'You've got my truck and I want it back,' you know? Or 'I'm going to throw sand in your face.'
"This is silly. Let's get on and be men about our business and appreciate the talent we have here and play ball together. That's all I'm trying to do. In the process, I just have to take the order over and say, 'It's my job to sit in judgement over you guys and that will be what I do.' This is my responsibility now."
The former Chicago Bulls coach, a master in the art of Zen and in the gospel of putting team before ego, is not the only one exasperated at the battle of wills. Bryant's supreme confidence in his own ability is at the epicentre of his talents, the X-factor which allows him to accomplish what others only dream of.
When he informed the world that he had spent several hours every day last summer working purely his shot, we scoffed. But when he came back a more complete player than ever in the autumn - perhaps now the most rounded performer in basketball - we had to take notice. Yet limiting his enhanced repertoire for the greater good runs contrary to his own ambitions.
"Turn my game down?," responded Bryant, mocking such an idea. "I need to turn it up. I've improved. How are you going to bottle me up? I'd be better off playing someplace else."
No way, Kobe, say the Lakers. Each can complain, whinge, sulk all they like but their employers have absolutely no intention of sanctioning a divorce between the bickering couple. Co-habitation will continue, an accommodation reached.
O'Neal, whose £11 million annual salary is enough to make even David Beckham feel short-changed, has been more visibly upset by the contre-temps. The usual playfulness and adolescent humour have given way to a more pensive outlook while on the parquet, that aggressiveness, the graceful yet brutal demolition of lesser opponents, has been turned down a notch, a situation, he suggests, which Bryant could quickly resolve.
"Don't judge my game on last year because the same things aren't happening," he said. "We had a certain programme and it worked. I don't see us doing that same programme. Don't say 'we' have a problem. I'm not a guard, I have to be fed the ball. When the dog is fed, he'll guard the yard. When he's not, anybody can come in."
Nonetheless, realise this. What the Big Everything and the Little Can-Do-Anything might accomplish in tandem far exceeds what they could achieve apart. Michael Jordan was just a full-time scorer until Scottie Pippen chipped in to help out in Chicago. Likewise in a previous incarnation of the Lakers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar required a touch of Magic to bring up the curtain on the Showtime era.
Both O'Neal and Bryant are smart enough to know that greatness is measured in terms of championships, not individual statistics. They may never embrace each other as people. But if they can learn to share their toys rather than pull them wastefully apart, then the Lakers will surely remain as the NBA's pre-eminent force for some years to come.
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