Somehow sports at its best tears high emotion from me. And political writer that I am now, I still have a sportswriter’s prose that quickens and throbs with the occasion. And I loved that. I was a kid in short pants again.
Well, things did change. The Los Angeles Lakers changed. Kobe Bryant and Shaq O’Neal changed. Phil Jackson, who was on the verge of giving up last year, also changed. And as they did, the Lakers came together as a mountain does clearing itself of mists, close to the clouds, big, huge, sloping, each ridge a definition of Ernest Hemingway’s upward path to Kilimanjaro. Sometimes sportswriting can be an intellectual exercise. And it is now in the case of the Lakers, who needed the touch of a psychological Midas to achieve greatness.
The Lakers Saturday ended the post-season series 4-1, easily upending the Philadelphia 76ers. The latter couldn’t have come that far without the herculean and heroic performance of Allen Iverson. Iverson is the Little Monk, just six feet tall, with a face that is hangdog lonely, tattoos all over his body, but with legs, arms and hands that go all over the court like a twister. Or the black funnel of a tornado on an end-run. It is not unusual that Iverson pumps in 40 points per game, and thus he was voted the NBA season’s Most Valuable Player before the face-off with the Lakers.
In posting that 108-96 victory in the fifth and final game over Philadelphia, the Lakers proved that they had come together, patched up the corrosive rivalry between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
Talk was no longer idle that today’s Lakers could be favorably compared to the Lakers of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Boston Celtics of old with Bill Russell and Bob Cousy. Laker fans had reason to whoop it up Saturday all over the US of A. In Los Angeles, all around the Staples Center, police contingents drew lines to make sure the merry-makers would not overturn cars and set dangerous bonfires in the streets.
Let’s start with Kobe Bryant, who at 19 went straight to the NBA without going to college. Kobe was a natural, height of 6-7. He had skills that bristles like livewire, extraordinary rhythm and flowing speed, versatility, remarkable but sometimes erratic marksmanship early on. He relished being called the successor of Michael Jordan. But he had a millstone around his neck – an overweening ego. Team players he was not. Bonded to the team, he was not. Respect Shaq he did not.
December last year, Kobe regarded his relationship with coach Phil Jackson as a "battle of wills." And as an American sportswriter reported, he instructed the Laker deejay "to play the opening bars of a particular song each time he made a big play. The song was Eminem’s The way I am. Hello.
Shaq O’Neal sought respect. He wanted the team built around him. After all, he was the legendary go-to guy. Shaq resembled a gleaming black and looming polar bear who could shag that ball and ram it down the hoop with the greatest of ease. The only way you could stop Shaq was ask the admiral of the Sixth Fleet to boom him off the floor with a naval barrage. Shaq couldn’t understand why that "young punk" of a Kobe Bryant wanted to his own way.
This depressed him. This depressed Phil Jackson. This depressed the team which at one time needed crutches to stay competitive. They were that dispirited.
The Lakers team had almost everything. What it lacked was a river current that could flow without letup or hindrance. Again what it lacked as Ron Harper told Phil Jackson was "intelligence." What it also lacked was the one thing Kobe didn’t have – " nobility." Jackson was literally banging his head against the wall.
But things happened. Alternately, Shaq and Kobe suffered injuries and had to take leave. The river current manifested itself. When only one of the two was on the floor, the other on sick leave, the team performed better. Whose team was it really? asked an eminent lady sportswriter Elizabeth Kaye. Her answer: "Without Shaq, it was Kobe’s team. Without Kobe, it was Shaq’s team." But greatness would continue to elude the Lakers if Shaq and Kobe could not be integrated into Jackson’s wellness. Another term could be esprit de corps.
A decided Laker advantage was that the team had depth. When fired up, they could all deliver. Derek Fisher of course, then Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Horace Grant and the others. Team depth was what the Philadelphia 76ers did not have. The Phillies had raw guts, were always motivated, never gave up. But they had only one Iverson and one Dikembe Mutombo. Even if the two were at their best, they were easily overpowered by the Lakers who could turn it on when need be.
Nobility eventually took hold of Kobe Bryant. Understanding seeped into the rock-hard stubbornness of Shaq O’Neal. A chemistry of words pleased both. Kobe was "the best" but Shaq was the "most dominant." Kobe was overheard to say: "The things that don’t kill you only make you stronger." Shaq in turn said: "I’m ready to stop answering those stupid questions" from the press.
Elizabeth Kaye relates it was late February last year that injuries of both Kobe and Shaq led to the vision of each on his own particular pilgrimage to Damascus. Without what Jackson described was the "luxury of Kobe," she adds, "the team was required to compensate for the 29 points he customarily supplied. This they did." The injured Kobe watched from the bench and was properly chastened. When he rejoined the team, he realized the advantage and the magic of "wellness." And he went into it without sacrificing his glamour status in the NBA.
Ah, yes. In the meantime, Shaq tended to his abominable foul-shooting, the worst in the NBA. He had a special coach for that. His coach told him: "I want you to wake up thinking about me." Seven weeks later, Shaq said to him, "You, SOB, you were in my dreams." It went off well. Shaq started to convert 67 percent of his free throws and now the opposing team backed off fouling Shaq at every opportunity. Once, Shaq converted 13 of 13 free throws.
As for cozying up to Shaq as the Big Brother, Kobe once heaped angry talk on Portland center Arvydas Sabonis who unnecessarily played dirty on Shaq. Things were going on well indeed. Phil Jackson was quoted as saying, "Heat refines impure things." A new, rejuvenated, reinvigorated Lakers team emerged, dancing around the fires of wellness. Phil Jackson again proved he was a prophet, the outstanding guru of professional basketball. The Spinoza of spheroid.
Kobe and Shaq, now in the same cocoon, showed they could cast a net far and wide and – like The Gladiator – haul in the enemy with consummate ease.
Sino ka ba, Speaker?