CHAPTER TEN1998-1999
CHAPTER TENWhen a reporter asked Bryant how he planned to spend his off-season, he responded simply, “Basketball. That’s all.”
Unfortunately, much of his work was in vain. The 1998-99 NBA season was a disaster from the very beginning. The players’ union’s contract with the owners had expired and the owners enforced a “lockout.” When it finally ended in January, the Lakers were in disarray, out of shape, and unprepared. The result was turmoil.
Practices were a mess. Bryant was accustomed to playing hard and went all out, an approach that angered many of his teammates, who felt he was trying to show them up. During one two-on-two session with O’Neal, Corie Blount, and Derek Fisher, O’Neal and Bryant had a confrontation that resulted in a brief scuffle. Although the altercation took place because each player was tired at the end of the long scrimmage, it revealed a problem between the two. While neither player cared to talk about it, observers hinted that O’Neal was jealous of Bryant’s tendency to take over on offense, which he felt left him out far too often and cost him shots. Bryant, on the other hand, thought that O’Neal’s work ethic didn’t match his incredible physical skills. In short, neither player really respected the other.
O’Neal and Bryant stopped talking and people wondered if it would ever be possible for the two stars to learn to play with one another. If they didn’t, they would never win a championship together.
The ill feeling between the two spilled over into the regular season, as did the Lakers’ disorganized play In reality, both players were at fault, for each had always been the focus of every team he had played on. Added to that was the fact that at age nineteen, Bryant didn’t have much in common with his teammates, who went out together after the game and forged friendships off the court. Bryant’s best friends were still members of his own family and old friends from high school.
The club got off to a rocky start, and after only eleven games Del Harris was fired and replaced by the club signed controversial forward and master rebounder Dennis Rodman. Although Rodman was incredibly valuable on the court, his flamboyant lifestyle had often been a distraction.
But the changes made little difference, and after another twelve games the Lakers decided to retool, trading Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell to Charlotte for long-range shooter Glen Rice and forward J. R. Reid. Then Rodman, in a dizzying week of controversy, retired, unretired, and was released. Some pundits suggested the team install a revolving door leading to the locker room.
The team split into several cliques, each of which blamed the others for the club’s erratic performance. O’Neal still wanted the offense to revolve around him, and Rice had a hard time adjusting to a system where he was usually the second or third option. In Charlotte, he had been his team’s go-to guy, the player who got the ball at crunch time. In Los Angeles, that player was O’Neal.
Bryant felt frustrated. He thought the Laker offense held him back and kept him from playing his game and using all his skills.
On the court, the team’s internal troubles became obvious. Everyone was still trying to learn what was expected of him, but they weren’t really playing together. When the Lakers struggled or the offense broke down, Bryant looked to score, which only increased the feeling of friction of the team. Too often, Bryant had the ball twenty or twenty-five feet from the basket, juking and faking and dribbling while his teammates just stood around unsure of what he was going to do next. And when Coach Rambis tried to initiate some changes in the club’s offense to accommodate both O’Neal and Bryant, the team often ignored him.
But even as the club continued to struggle, Bryant’s playing time increased. He moved into the starting lineup, splitting time between the guard and forward positions. As he got the opportunity to play, he cut loose and wowed fans at L.A.’s Great Western Forum with his stunning athleticism and leaping ability. Bryant often played to the crowd, trying to top each spectacular shot with an even better one.
It was entertaining, but did nothing to help team chemistry. O’Neal and other veteran players felt left out, and Bryant was estranged from his teammates. The local media went wild reporting on the Lakers’ ongoing soap opera, as O’Neal intimated that he thought Bryant alone was the cause of the team’s problems. After each game or practice, Bryant went one way and the rest of the team went another. In an understatement, Joe Bryant said, “It’s been a difficult year for my son.”
Yet somehow, despite everything, the Lakers had enough talent to win more than they lost. But critics noted that the Lakers didn’t appear to have a coherent plan on offense. When their jump shots fell, which opened up the inside for O’Neal, they won. But when they didn’t, the opposition could double-team O’Neal and pick off rebounds, often holding the Lakers to just a single shot. When that happened, the Lakers had a hard time scoring and usually lost.
Bryant finished the regular season with a scoring average of nearly 20 points per game. Los Angeles faced the Houston Rockets, a team in even more disarray than the Lakers, in the first round of the playoffs.
In the first two games of the series, the Lakers looked like a team that had finally learned to play together. Bryant shut down Rocket star Scottie Pippen, and the Lakers swept the first two games.
But when Bryant got in foul trouble in game three, Pippen went wild, scoring 37 points as the Rockets won. Then the Lakers pulled a surprise in game four.
Bryant and O’Neal spent much of the first half passing to each other for easy baskets, and the Lakers jumped out way ahead and won with ease, eliminating the Rockets. It was the way it was supposed to be, and gave everyone a glimpse of just how good the Lakers could be if O’Neal and Bryant learned to play together, just as Jerry West had once learned to play with Wilt Chamberlain, and Magic Johnson with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“All those stories about me and Shaq, you can throw in the garbage,” said Bryant afterward. “Look at us. We play great together.”
The victory sent the Lakers up against the San Antonio Spurs in the next round. With their twin towers of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, the Spurs had the manpower to match up against O’Neal under the basket. When they did, the Lakers appeared confused. Rice and Bryant both reacted by trying to go one-on-one in an attempt to generate some offense. But the Spurs continued to dominate play underneath the basket and control the tempo of the game.
With O’Neal in constant foul trouble and the rest of the team shooting poorly, the Lakers battled hard but couldn’t manage to overcome the Spurs. And for the second straight year Kobe Bryant missed several important shots late in close games, including two bricks from the free throw line that cost his team a chance to win game three. The Spurs defeated the Lakers in four straight games. The season was over.
Finally.