Hey Kobe, Smile! You're Winning

ORLANDO

Scowling Kobe. Seething Kobe. Elbow-to-Superman's-Throat Kobe. So-singularly-focused-it's-frightening Kobe. All these new incarnations of the world's most breathtaking, if polarizing, basketball player look convincing after this war of a Game 4.

But these Mamba-is-Mad Finals, starring that suddenly mean-mugging star in purple and gold -- the self-proclaimed "Black Mamba" -- don't engender much feel-good emotion for the Kobester.

It's hard to argue with his methods after Shaquille O'Neal's one-time little brother has reached the precipice of his fourth NBA championship, and his first as a leading man.

But with all the grimacing and frowning and cold stares the past week, this whole big-meanie act flies in the face of the Kobe I used to know, the one I'd like to see before this unbelievably riveting theater with the Orlando Magic comes to a close.

That player showed up for a brief glimpse on the dais last night, after Derek Fisher struck twice from behind the three-point line, daggers at the end of regulation and overtime, to push the Lakers to a 3 games to 1 lead against Orlando and their 7-footer who was tortured by the free-throw line, Dwight Howard.

Asked what choice words were shared between he and Howard after their third-quarter, bow-throwing flare-up, Kobe replied, "You know Dwight doesn't curse anyway, so it was nothing malicious."

Smiling publicly for the first time in about 10 days, he added, "I don't curse."

That guy also appeared in a corridor leading to the court at Amway Arena on Wednesday afternoon, Kobe caught Rafer Alston's gaze and rapped him forcefully on the chest.

"Man, you took that back to Rucker Park," he said to the streetball king known as "Skip to My Lou." Alston had dribbled around the Lakers like Marques Haynes the night before in the Magic's first NBA Finals win, reminding Kobe of the kid he used to watch on an AND1 mix tape as a teenager in Harlem, N.Y. -- when basketball was joyous and not a job.

At that moment he was the 19-year-old who volunteered to give a reporter a ride back to his Marina Del Rey, Calif., hotel 11 years ago in the Forum parking lot. Opening the door to his black BMW, unafraid to turn up the volume on a Spice Girls CD, he talked about how much other child prodigies such as tennis star Martina Hingis inspired him.

I never expected him to be that kid forever, especially after sexual-assault charges, later dropped, and an admitted infidelity made us no longer view Kobe through the same wunderkind prism anymore. Irrespective of our own flaws and rotten decisions in life, none of us will ever have to deal with a crowd chanting "No means no" in Denver last month or a Magic fan showing up to the arena last night with a T-shirt that read, "Kobe Cheats. Just Ask His Wife."