Lakers Hope to Burst the Trial Balloon

To the other Lakers, Kobe Bryant is simply a ballplayer, their teammate.

To most, he will be the man and the player he was when they saw him last, trudging sadly from the floor at Staples Center, and what he is this week, when he returns, in a gym near downtown Honolulu.

The Lakers who would address it said that Bryant should play the season, despite the felony sexual assault charge that hangs over him and the organization, that they would stand with him and play with him, for him even, if that were his preference that day. They say that if he’s changed his mind, if he needs someone to hold his head and soothe his soul, they’ll do that too.

“People who are accused go to work,” Horace Grant said. “I think he should play. Innocent until proven guilty, that’s what it’s all about.”

The Lakers open training camp for their younger players today at the University of Hawaii. Bryant and the rest of the veterans report Thursday.

He faces a rape accusation in Colorado, a preliminary hearing on Oct. 9, perhaps a quite public trial. Those would be distractions enough for anyone, but he also had two off-season surgeries and will be eligible for free agency after this season.

So the other Lakers face these questions too, and share the turmoil, the distractions and, of course, the potential to have one of the great -- if conflicted -- seasons in NBA history.

They say they’ll face it willingly, beside him, first as friends and then, if required, as defenders. After an off-season of projecting what it would be, it is here, Bryant of the agonizing summer, the Lakers of Shaquille O’Neal alongside newcomers Karl Malone and Gary Payton, all of them in it together, like it or not.

“I think he should play,” Malone said. “Matter of fact, I think it would be the best thing for him. When a guy’s going through tough times, instead of raking dirt off, everybody wants to kick some more on. That’s human nature. That’s what people are about. For me, knock a little off for me.”

Malone, who knows Bryant only as an opponent and an All-Star game teammate, paused and considered the question again, then increased the volume and conviction in a reply to those who might disagree.

“Do I think he should play?” Malone asked. “Let me tell you something, most of these guys talking now are not playing no more. Everybody wants to say what they think the public wants to hear. How about supporting the guy? Everybody convicted him. Kobe’s a teammate of mine. Do I think he should play? I think it’s the best thing for him. You can’t be in jail in your own house. At some point, you gotta play. That’s your life. That’s your profession. That’s not even an option, whether he should play or not.”

Only in the last few weeks has Bryant, guarded and suspicious even in uncomplicated times, begun to reestablish his Laker relationships, such as they are. He spoke to Coach Phil Jackson. He returned calls to teammates. He visited the Laker practice facility in El Segundo. It amounted to normality, such as it is, or will be.

Bryant told Jackson a month ago, and General Manager Mitch Kupchak two weeks ago, that he would attend training camp and that he intended to play the entire season. Speculation has Bryant’s lawyers hoping for a trial date in the downtime between the NBA playoffs and the Olympics, should a trial be ordered. In that scenario, Bryant might play a season unbroken by court appearances, if not by the emotional ebb and flow of living and working under such circumstances.

Several teammates said that if Bryant chose to play, then they would insist on it.

“That’s his decision and I haven’t heard anything differently,” Rick Fox said. “Kobe is one of the game’s most electrifying players to watch. I hope that in no way ... is squashed. His life off the court is changed. His life on the basketball court will be challenged and affected by the pressure of his off-court situation. I hope he can lose himself in it. I hope I can watch a teammate I’ve watched grow up still go out and be able to lose himself in the game, because in no way is he going to be less skilled.

“If I know him, he’ll be more challenged to go out and meet what is in front of him. That could end up being a very exciting thing to watch and a very proud moment as a teammate.”

Bryant’s teammates have little choice but to play on, what with so much at stake. Presumably, they harbor the questions everyone does, but won’t ask. Presumably, Bryant won’t offer much, and certainly not in public.

Yet as they brace for the unprecedented spectacle the season could be, Fox said, there seems to be little that fame -- or notoriety -- could teach them now. They remain the drama-a-day Lakers, having survived all of the previous days to win three championships, hardened by conflicts and resolutions. Now that they are rebuilt for a fourth, with more bold games and personalities than ever, in some ways the task seems similar.

“There’s going to be an impact,” Fox said. “There’s no denying the level of impact it’s had already or that it will have on everybody. As we go along the season, we’ll all adjust and respond to the way Kobe is treated.

“When we get in a room as a group for the first time, I look forward to that. Not only to get a chance to sit down with Kobe again, but also to collectively assure him that we’re going to be the 15 or 20 people in the world he doesn’t have to worry about. We’ll be the nonjudgmental 15 that are going to be there for him, support him, beyond what people out there are throwing at him.

“For him to make it through the season, it’s going to be a challenge, for him as a basketball player and for all of us. Off the court, I’m sure it’s going to be challenging too. It will be emotionally challenging. That’s up to us, as teammates, to in some way relieve some of that and be an outlet for him, an ear for him, a support system. We can’t run away from it. If you tuck your head as a teammate, shy away from it and let him stand alone ... I’ll tell you, we’ve done a lot of fighting together. Being nonjudgmental is the first task.”

Indeed, the theme for the Lakers’ success and Bryant’s coping is that the basketball floor will be the shelter, with the real potential for disorder coming from outside the locker room, from the faces that stare up at the team bus, distractions slung from behind notepads and boom mikes. They cannot comprehend the fan who will delight in Bryant’s situation, but know their reaction to him.

“When a guy has his back against the wall, it’s when he needs people, that shoulder,” Malone said. “He don’t need you when he scores 40 and hits the game-winning bucket. Just from the All-Star games, that’s the most I know Kobe. I know Shaq a lot better. We talk about huntin’, talk about Harleys all the time.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I know Kobe, but I’ll tell you what, I’m going to get to know him. I’m his teammate and friend not just now, but I’m going to be his friend five years from now, 10 years from now. That’s where we start.

“We’re going to get through this as a group, as a team. It’s going to be a bumpy situation, we know that. It’s going to be more than usual, but we’re going to support him. You just don’t throw a guy away. It don’t matter what you think this guy did, what you think a guy said. He’s a teammate. He’s a guy I’m going to battle with.”

So, they pledge to lose themselves in the games, and in the preparation for them, and to ignore the irrational. More than ever, perhaps, they will disappear into Jackson’s concepts of team and triangle, and then honor the sacrifices made by Malone and Payton, and then follow O’Neal’s path. The season will have its moments of crisis, almost guaranteed. It will be a test of Bryant’s resolve. But, eventually, it will be about basketball, and then about friendship.

“First, his forgiveness has got to come from up above and his wife,” Grant said. “That’s first of all. But, with teammates like us, if he wants an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, if he wants to talk, he’s got some veteran leadership here. Knowing Kobe and how stubborn he is about certain things, I think he’ll get through it. He’ll get through it.”

They all will, he said.

“If they had brought some young guys to this organization, a situation like this, I’d have been afraid,” Grant said. “But you have guys who have been through certain situations. Myself, Karl, Gary. No, I’m not worried about it. Kobe has leadership here, with us. It’s unfortunate, Kobe’s situation. But it’s not going to take anything away from us, our goal.”