Perception Should Be Bryant’s Wake-Up Call

Got a call from the Mitch Albom radio show Thursday morning. Besides being a radio host, Albom is also a Detroit newspaper columnist and author who likes to write sob stories about people dying or who are dead already.

Sooner or later, I’m sure, he’ll weigh in on the UCLA football program.

Anyway, I was surprised he was calling me and not Plaschke -- since they have so much in common.

But he wanted to put me on his radio show and remind everyone who lives in that dump where he works that I was the guy who predicted a Laker playoff sweep, and how did I feel now that the Lakers had disintegrated?

As you might imagine, I told him how upset I was -- especially after hearing that Kobe Bryant had chosen not to play for the Clippers.

I told him we were well on our way to teaching the pros who let us down in this town a lesson -- you know like the Hall of Fame-loaded Lakers losing to a bunch of scrubs from Detroit -- that if they fail us, they can take their act to Montana, Miami or the moon, which is what it must feel like to play for the Clippers.

But then Bryant went and messed things up by staying with the Lakers, and now what’ve we got?

“A bleep,” is how the guy sitting next to me at the bar in the ESPN Zone in Downtown Disney put it shortly after the TV announcement was made that Bryant was going to remain with the Lakers.

The guy, of course, didn’t say “bleep,” and frankly, I haven’t heard such language since the last barbecue with the Grocery Store Bagger’s family, but that didn’t bother me as much as the angry tone in the guy’s voice and his obvious distaste for Bryant.

I asked what he had against Bryant, and he said, “He’s arrogant.”

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THAT’S INTERESTING, because somewhere down the road the perception that Bryant is “selfish,” which isn’t all that nasty when you attach “well, he’s young” behind it, turned -- and now it appears he’s perceived as “arrogant.”

I read the same thing in a column written by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith the other day, and he’s pretty much an arrogant authority, so I took note when he suggested the perception that Bryant can get anything he wants now won’t play well with the jury pool in Colorado. I don’t know whether that’s true, but the jury pool can read.

I heard a similar discussion on radio station 1090 this week with host Scott Kaplan concluding the same thing, so I called Bryant’s agent to discuss the public perception of his arrogant client, and he began arguing.

I’ve found that, as a rule, when you argue with perception -- perception always wins.

Obviously Bryant’s agent, Rob Pelinka, does not feel there is a belief out there among just plain folk that Bryant is the guy who ran Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal out of town. Pelinka, of course, also doesn’t buy the prevailing perception that he’s just another sleazy, not-to-be-trusted agent, who reneged on a handshake deal with Cleveland to take his client, Carlos Boozer, to Utah for more money. There is no jury pool for him to worry about, so being just another sleazy, not-to-be-trusted agent is no crime.

I know what Jerry Buss said in defending Bryant, but I also know not too many people believe a guy who has a babe in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

I called another close associate of Bryant’s, mentioned what appears to be the general perception -- that Bryant is arrogant and called the shots on Jackson’s and Shaq’s departures so he could rule the Lakers -- and he argued.

I guess it’s nice to have folks argue on your behalf, but then I’ve never been surrounded by folks whose income hinges on whether they always tell me what they think I want to hear. I can’t even get that in a wife, even when I’ve mentioned that her income depends on it.

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BRYANT, OF course, is insulated from the real world and oblivious to public perception. He needs better advisors, needs to make community inroads and needs to explain himself better. When his wife wore a T-shirt to an exhibition game with the Clippers with “fashionable bleep” written across her chest, the Bryants made it clear they were oblivious to public perception and its impact.

We discussed that at the time, and Bryant struggled to understand the implications of a young mother wearing something so crude in front of young children in a public place.

I’m not surprised that he’s out of touch with the way most folks think. He’s a superstar with a protective entourage, and in his world a three-point jumper with less than a second remaining makes everything all right.

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I’VE ALWAYS been a Kobe Bryant supporter because I love the entertainment he brings on the basketball court.

I’ve also enjoyed our little chats and his ability and intelligence to deal with good-natured ribbing.

But we begin anew as he puts his signature to a seven-year deal that will make him the unquestioned leader of the Lakers. He has a new set of responsibilities.

That’s what he wanted, and whether he actually called the shots to get it or not, it no longer matters. That’s the prevailing perception, which makes him the bad guy to many whether his entourage agrees or not.

And if Bryant arrogantly chooses to dismiss it, every one of those last-second three-pointers better fall.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Kit Foulds:

“Who was that red-headed, fowl-mouthed sports writer that appeared on the Jay Leno All-Star Game spoof? You have competition. Don’t tell me that it was the Bagger.”

If he was only acting like he was working -- it’s possible.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.