Bryant Has Time to Spare

Wearing the suit he wore in court all day, Kobe Bryant strode into the Laker locker room 46 minutes before Wednesday’s game was scheduled to start.

He was smiling. He smacked Horace Grant’s hand and referred to him by nickname, Grant breaking into a grin himself.

“Hey there, boy!” Grant said, unable to resist the sight of Bryant, buoyant between hearings in Eagle, Colo.

Three months before, given the same attempted agenda, Bryant had missed the first quarter of a game against the Denver Nuggets. So his luck is turning or he is more adept at the travel details and, either way, the Lakers are better for it.

The organization can handle a few missed practices, deal with the regular-season games spent in Colorado. What hangs over the Lakers is April 26-28 and May 10-14, eight days Judge Terry Ruckriegle has set aside for more hearings.

Bryant could miss a game or two in the first round and two or three in the second, or be forced to fly in and out of Colorado on game days, and at minimum miss hours of preparation and rest leading to the games.

Coach Phil Jackson called it “a tremendous concern.”

If nothing else, he said, the team has grown accustomed to preparing and playing without Bryant, and Bryant, perhaps, has found something of a rhythm to these days.

“We have to go through that, around that,” Jackson said, “and make it work for us. Hopefully, it’ll be something like today, where he’ll return, even though he’s not there for the shoot-around.”

Karl Malone, who left the relative tranquillity of Utah for the chaos of Los Angeles and continues to insist he would again, said the season has prepared the players for all distractions, including those about Bryant.

“We all knew that,” he said. “You guys look at dates, we look at them as well. We realize first, second round, we could be without Kobe for a while.

“To me, you just want the kid to be all right. The basketball stuff, he’s got a lot of years for that.”

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As if Bryant didn’t have enough to bear, what with the sexual assault charges and keeping the Lakers propped up every fourth quarter, he is PETA’s third-worst dressed celebrity of 2004.

Behind Diana Ross’ minks and Martha Stewart’s chinchillas was Bryant’s choice of winter wear -- a gold-colored, hooded coat, so large and furry that, at a glance, it appears he is being mauled by a lion.

Gary Payton also was seen wearing a fur coat, this one gray and, he said, faux. Asked what animal it was, he said, “Nike.”

His shoe company sent it along.

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First, Shaquille O’Neal joked about the huge disparity between the punishments handed down to himself and Houston Rocket guard Steve Francis for swearing on live game broadcasts.

NBA Vice President of Operations Stu Jackson fined Francis $25,000 for using a curse word during an interview at halftime of Sunday’s Houston-Sacramento game on ESPN. Francis apologized on air before the start of the third quarter. When O’Neal cursed during an interview with KCAL’s John Ireland after a Laker victory in Toronto on Feb. 1 (then used another expletive when Ireland reminded him they were on live TV) he received a one-game suspension that cost him $275,000.

O’Neal walked around the locker room alternately swearing and apologizing before Wednesday’s game against Sacramento. Later, he emerged from the players’ lounge with a handwritten statement.

“Stu Jackson runs the NBA rules committee the same way he ran the Knicks and Grizzlies: ‘Inconsistently,’ ” it read, referring to Jackson’s tenure as coach of New York and president of the Grizzlies. “The fact of the matter is, I said twice as many bad words and got fined eleven times more. Thank you Stu. Love, Shaq.”

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Michael Cooper is gaining momentum as a potential NBA coach.

At least two NBA general managers, beginning to maneuver for off-season changes, have contacted Cooper about his NBA interest, according to league sources.

Cooper, the former Laker, has coached the WNBA’s Sparks for four seasons and has two years remaining on his contract.

Times staff writer J.A. Adande contributed to this report.