There's No 'I' in MVP

LOS ANGELES

He's lived here in Southern California long enough to know a Hollywood ending when he sees one. It was only about 11 months ago that Kobe Bryant said he wanted out of L.A., wanted a divorce from the Lakers. He was prepared to trade the SoCal palm trees for Chicago's icicles.

So yes, Kobe sees the irony of his situation now. The trade the Bulls and Lakers couldn't complete over the summer left him here, where he surely belongs, and left him here with a better team, smarter executives and certainly a better coach. It left him here for a sharp career turn he couldn't see coming, playing for a team that won the toughest conference race in NBA history. It left him here holding the trophy for most valuable player and unable to hold back about the biggest smile to cross his face in years.

"It's Hollywood, it's a movie script," he said Tuesday of the unpredictable plot twists the Lakers' season and his career have taken since late May of last year.

"Telling me 11 months ago that we'd be here . . . man, I'd think you were crazy."

So, it's over those last 11 months that Kobe's gone from unhappy and mistrustful to tolerant to encouraged to optimistic to, now, downright giddy. The ugly and public divorce from Shaquille O'Neal following the 2004 season seems ages ago, as does the legal trouble he had in Colorado the year before. Once again, the obsession in Los Angeles is about basketball, and whether the Lakers will be able to win a 15th NBA championship. Behind Kobe's 34 points, the fired-up Lakers won Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinals series against Utah Wednesday night, 120-110, to take a 2-0 lead and remain undefeated in this postseason.

Commissioner David Stern presented the MVP trophy to Bryant before a full and full-throated house at Staples Center before tip-off, putting Bryant with Kareem, Magic and Shaq as Los Angeles Lakers who have won it. "It's an honor beyond comprehension," Kobe said of the award he never thought he'd win.

Stern, before the presentation, said of Kobe beating out Chris Paul and Kevin Garnett, "His team sits atop the most competitive conference race we've probably had in our history."

Kobe even deadpanned, "I'm going to do something I really don't want to do . . . give credit to Mitch Kupchak." The line, which Kobe was hoping would get a big laugh, drew only nervous chuckles instead. "Sounded like they had to drag it out of him," Kupchak said, standing nearby. "It's nice to hear he's happy with the group of players surrounding him. It's even more profound to hear he wants to be a Laker the rest of his career."

So why did Kobe win the award this year? He's averaged more points in a season than he did in 2007-08, he's won more games in a regular season, been more prolific and more spectacular. So what made this year different?

For one, he enabled his team to win the closest, most competitive conference race ever. But more important, for the first time in his career Kobe became a great teammate. Okay, he doesn't exactly cop to that. Kobe says he learned to "trust" his teammates more. But others, such as New Orleans Hornets coach and former Lakers guard Byron Scott, have come right out and said it, that Kobe's made himself a great teammate.

Regardless of the language, what this translates into on the court is that Kobe no longer tries to do everything (and therefore too much) because his teammates weren't good enough and couldn't be trusted. He now feels comfortable facilitating their contributions as much as worrying about his own. Finally, if Luke Walton or Sasha Vujacic misses a jumper or two or three, Kobe will come right back to them with a pass, trusting they'll make the next one. Or as teammate Lamar Odom said, "When he finds trust in you, you want to be a better player."

The proof was in all of Bryant's teammates attending the official MVP ceremony at a Los Angeles hotel on Tuesday after practice. In past years, even as Kobe's performances suggested he was the single best player in the league, teammates didn't necessarily want to be bothered with him away from the game. He was seen, even in his own locker room, as aloof, arrogant and simply difficult. Phil Jackson wrote as much in a book a few years ago. Bryant had so many detractors in basketball circles (and they haven't all disappeared) they operated under the group name "Kobe Haters." The club seems a little passé now. What's to hate about this Kobe?

Said Derek Fisher, Kobe's closest friend on the team: "I see growth as a man outside of basketball, and I think that's where the change has really happened. Having two daughters now, having a wife . . . I think basketball has become in its proper position in life, so now it's easier for him to be part of a team, part of a group. I think it makes it easier that he likes us all, he enjoys being with us all."

Bryant is completely convinced that his teammates' ripening has contributed more than any big change he's made to the perception he's a better teammate. In a conversation he had with me Tuesday afternoon for ESPN, Kobe said he was first encouraged when he arrived at training camp in October and saw that his teammates had simply improved their skills over the summer.

"The first thing I said to them is, 'You guys are ready,' " he said. "They've grown into this from getting into the gym by themselves and working out, working out hard, improving their games -- not only getting ready for the moment but wanting that moment and coming to me and saying, 'Kob, I'm ready for you to kick it to me and I'm going to knock it down.' Those are the things I wanted to see and that I needed to see. . . . They've made me look good by doing all the things they've done, by coming through in clutch situations, making the right plays. . . . Now people are looking at me like I've done something miraculous when they've done all the work."

Okay, that's a little too much modesty for me. Yes, the young Lakers are growing up, and Kupchak's grand-theft swap of Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol was a fabulous deal, but Kobe's personality now is more conducive to winning than it was in his first three seasons without Shaq. According to opponents, Kobe has learned when to push teammates and when to back off. He even says that playing with so many Europeans (Gasol, Vujacic, Ronny Turiaf, Vladimir Radmanovic) is great because he spent many of his formative years in Europe.

"We have a team," Kobe said, "that we all get along and we all enjoy each other's company. It's tough to do that when the chemistry isn't there. . . . In the past, it was such a huge age difference, there was a lot of bickering going on. . . . With this team, you don't have any of that. You have a lot of European players and five or six different languages, which fits well with my background . . . and everybody can just be themselves. We just laugh, joke and rip each other. It's funny."