As Bryant sits out opener, Lakers make do just fine

KOBE BRYANT took the night off against Phoenix. Imagine that.

Unlike Broadway, where they inform the paying customers the part of the star will be played by the understudy, Bryant took the floor in suit and tie, grabbed the microphone and told the crowd, “We’re excited to start off the season.”

Then he took a seat behind the bench, becoming a spectator and allowing the exhibition season to continue for the Lakers, dropping the new lights in Staples Center on Andrew Bynum, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar.

The fans also didn’t get a glimpse of Jack Nicholson, a no-show for the opener, making you wonder if he had inside information on who was not going to play against the Suns. Obviously, no one tipped him off on who might win.

Bryant, who underwent knee surgery July 15, told Coach Phil Jackson he couldn’t go in the opener, and now both Jackson and Bryant are expected to miss the season’s first road game in Golden State tonight -- theoretically giving the rest of the league a two-game head start on the Lakers.

No way the scrubs, of course, had a chance of beating the Suns, the pick by some to win the NBA title, and so it seemed when Phoenix ran out to a 19-point lead. In the first quarter.

The Suns, well on their way to a laugher to start off the season, then played on as if it really were an exhibition game, allowing the Lakers kids and Lamar Odom to get their feet under them and take a 16-point fourth-quarter lead.

Phoenix mounted charge after charge down the stretch, but Odom continued to play at a level that might very well move the Lakers up a notch in NBA prognostications. He had the crowd chanting, “Odom, Odom, Odom,” with less than a minute to play and the scoreboard showing that he had put up 34 points.

Then the folks who run the scoreboard in Staples showed Bryant in his suit and tie -- just to make sure the fans hadn’t forgotten him.

The Lakers won by eight and finished with four players in double figures and not a single one of them named Bryant.

Makes you wonder now if Bryant were right along when he took a step back against Phoenix and allowed his teammates to do their best to score without him. Imagine that.

IN LAS Vegas, if you had Andrew Bynum scoring the first two points of this new Lakers season, you ought to be doing one of those infomercials proclaiming yourself a soothsayer. And sign me up.

And if you’re Mitch Kupchak, I’ve got a feeling no one is going to be spending a whole lot of time debating the draft selection used on Bynum a year ago. Bynum, showing maybe the most improvement of anyone, with the exception of Odom, finished with 18 points and nine rebounds.

WITH 4:50 left in the first quarter and the Lakers getting drilled, Jeanie Buss, who was sitting directly across the court from her boyfriend, began frantically signaling for him to take a timeout, or then again maybe she was pointing to her finger and asking for a ring. I couldn’t quite tell for sure. Either way, he ignored her.

MISS RADIO Personality asked Jackson on the morning radio show what Jeanie sees in him, and he said, “She likes tall guys.”

He also said he wanted to give a “public spanking” to the guy who suggested Bryant went into a pout against Phoenix last season, but I see no reason to go into the details of that public spanking.

THE LAKERS started Vujacic in place of Bryant, and I remain confident that at some point this season, Vujacic will score a point.

DURING ONE stretch, the Lakers got a reminder of what it was like when Shaq was here, missing five consecutive free throws.

FARMAR’S FIRST NBA points, coming on consecutive baskets late in the third quarter, put the Lakers up by 10 and undoubtedly elevated Farmar’s status to overnight NBA sensation with the appreciative crowd. It appeared he already had Jackson’s attention, starting the fourth quarter and starting it with another basket.

THE ATMOSPHERE at USC Tuesday was reminiscent of those long-ago, high school-playing days when the coach would get mad if anyone on the bus said anything, or did anything other than act sad following a loss.

Pete Carroll was not the Pete Carroll I know during his Tuesday news conference. And when I mentioned that to him, he walked away.

He was all business -- as if USC now is really concerned about playing Stanford, which is 0-8.

Carroll explained he was trying to get it across to the younger players “that this should be a dramatic occurrence,” one of these regular-season losses coming every three years or so.

Maybe so, but what Carroll has done the last few years is extraordinary -- getting to this point that everyone thinks a loss is a catastrophe, and while several readers e-mailed asking why I’m not pounding Carroll like I have Karl Dorrell -- hello?

There’s plenty of time to do that after the Trojans play Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame. Oh, and I forgot, UCLA.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Richard Agay ‘54:

“To quote T.J., ‘the funeral march began before the game, the UCLA players trudging through the Fun Zone almost unnoticed,’ and little wonder given their reaction to applause and cheers by those few fans [who noticed]. Not a wave, not a smile, not even a nod. Do these talent-challenged kids expect -- much less deserve -- adulation in response to their disdain?”

Don’t fret, the way things are going, there won’t be any fans to ignore.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.