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This is what Kobe Bryant wanted. He is still in L.A., and nearly everyone else we associated with the Lakers is not. The Lakers are Bryant's team. That Hall of Fame center is gone; so is that Hall of Fame coach, and folks in Lakerland are getting accustomed to the fact that there's no crying over spilled Phil. "Why wouldn't I be happy?" Bryant wondered last week.

If you're a self-absorbed superstar--is there any doubt Bryant qualifies?--this situation is a dream. Bryant is scoring 27.8 percent of the Lakers' points, the highest share in the league. He is taking 26.1 percent of the team's shots, another league high. The team's stated goal has been to keep games close going into the fourth quarter and let Bryant win them in the end, just as he did when Shaquille O'Neal and Phil Jackson were around.

Problem is, Jackson's idea was to have O'Neal bully opponents for three quarters before letting Bryant take over in the fourth. These days, Bryant is the Lakers' primary ballhandler, primary post player and primary defender. Then, he is supposed to be L.A.'s big-time player in the clutch. He can't handle that much.

That was obvious when the Lakers played the one-win Bulls in Chicago last week. L.A. kept that game close, down 86-84 with just under 2 minutes to go. It sure looked as if Bryant would take over, and in a way, he did. First, by committing a turnover after he lost control of the ball on an unnecessary between-the-legs dribble. Then by clanging two 3-point attempts. The Lakers lost.

Outside the United Center, Michael Jordan's statue shed a tear and allegedly whispered, "This is my heir apparent?"

Inside, Lakers coach Rudy Tomjanovich was testy. "If the game turned out different, then you were great," he said. "People would say, 'Whoa, that was fantastic; way to take over.' If you don't do it, it's like, 'What was that all about?'"

Tomjanovich should look at the numbers--Bryant's takeovers have not been overly successful. After the Chicago game, the Lakers had trailed or been tied entering the fourth quarter seven times this season and had lost all seven games. If the team is expecting the fourth quarter to be Bryant's time, it might be nice for him to lead the Lakers to a comeback win.

It's not all Bryant's fault, of course. The Lakers' rotation is a mess. The team must figure out which players it wants to use in its rebuilding and trade the excess. This team has depth, but it has the same pretty good player at each spot, over and over. The centers, for example, are Chris Mihm, Brian Cook and Vlade Divac, three nice offensive players who can't play tough D. The No. 2 scoring option behind Bryant is unclear, but that overshadows the fact the Lakers don't yet know who options 3, 4 and 5 are. Don't even think about 6 through 10.

Olympian Lamar Odom, the most obvious candidate to be Bryant's top sidekick, has yet to establish himself at power forward. Small forward Caron Butler, not Odom, takes the most shots after Bryant. Against more physical power forwards, the 6-10, 232-pound Odom is undersized and a defensive liability. Odom points out that he can present matchup problems on the offensive end, which is true--except that the Lakers call few plays for him.

"We're still trying to find the pieces and put everything together," Bryant says. "Everybody needs to have patience with us."

The Lakers can afford patience because they're thinking long term. Even in the short term, they're not a bad team and have feasted on the NBA's dregs. But the Lakers can't dabble in mediocrity--not if Bryant wants to erase Lakerland's misty memories of O'Neal and Jackson and not if Bryant wants to prove he can run a team solo. For now, all we can do is sit back, look at Bryant's Lakers takeover and wonder, "What is this all about?"

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Seems that when a guy is a coach he should actually coach. Don Nelson is obviously grooming Avery Johnson for coaching, but allowing Johnson to take over for various games throughout the season makes a mockery of the job.

Three times in six years as coach of the Cavaliers, Mike Fratello's teams finished either last or next-to-last in offense. But those worrying about the Grizzlies' direction now that Fratello has taken over for Hubie Brown should take solace--the Grizzlies work best when they run, and Fratello knows it. He coached uptempo teams in Atlanta, and he'll do the same in Memphis.

The NBA players union is clinging to its hopes of getting the suspensions of Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O'Neal reduced by attempting to have a hearing in front of arbitrator Roger Kaplan. But even if the union presents its case to Kaplan, two league sources say it's unlikely he will find that commissioner David Stern overstepped his authority in levying such harsh suspensions.

The Celtics must hope that Paul Pierce pulls himself together. Pierce had a childish ingame argument with coach Doc Rivers last week and left the arena in a huff--a strange move for a pretty laid-back player. Pierce is a max-contract guy and should act like a leader, but he is dangerously close to following the path failed leaders Baron Davis and Vince Carter have taken.

INSIDE DISH

Teams are finding success against Miami by double-teaming C Shaquille O'Neal and allowing 3-point shots by the wing players. Miami's shooting guards and small forwards are struggling despite open looks. Eddie Jones, Rasual Butler, Wesley Person and Shandon Anderson were shooting 31.4 percent combined from the 3-point line entering the week and were doing little to defend the perimeter. Opponents were shooting 38.8 percent on 3s. The Heat wants to take things slowly with rookie G/F Dorell Wright, but he is the team's only other option and could be pressed into action. > The Hornets are beginning to look to the future. They traded PG Darrell Armstrong, 36, to the Mavericks for PG Dan Dickau and a draft pick, mostly to open playing time for PG Junior Harrington. Veterans SG David Wesley, 34, and PF P.J. Brown, 35, could follow soon. New Orleans is amenable to trading PG Baron Davis, but he is injured again with an inflamed disk in his back and probably won't return until January. > There have been obvious difficulties incorporating SG Tracy McGrady into coach Jeff Van Gundy's slow-down offense, but it looks as if, after a meeting last week, Van Gundy is making concessions. The result has been more points for McGrady, but the style is unnatural for Van Gundy, and the tempo at which McGrady plays seems to cause problems for the Rockets' defense, which is Van Gundy's pride and joy. > One of the questions about Mavericks rookie C Pavel Podkolzin entering the 2004 draft was a pituitary disorder he had been diagnosed with. In the past, surgery for the disorder would have involved breaking open his skull to remove a tumor on his pituitary gland. But last week at the Skull Base Institute, Podkolzin underwent a unique process in which the tumor was removed through his nose. Podkolzin spent just one day in the hospital and will begin practicing in a few weeks. > Nuggets SF Carmelo Anthony is caught in a string of negativity. Of all the U.S. Olympians whose reputations took a nose dive, his took the biggest. There was a marijuana charge, which was dropped. There also was a nightclub fight in September. Now there is an underground DVD that shows Anthony home in Maryland last summer, apparently hanging around an alleged drug dealer. None of this has helped Anthony's attempt to regain control of his image. "I've been trying to, excuse my language, bust my ass trying to make everybody happy, trying to do things right around here," Anthony told reporters last week. "It's bad timing right now. Everything happens back-to-back-to-back-to-back." What's worse is that, on the court, Anthony seems to have regressed, and draft mates SG LeBron James and G Dwyane Wade have vaulted to stardom. Anthony's shooting, scoring and rebounding are down, and his turnovers are way up--he is sixth in the NBA.

The Raptors are falling apart under first-year coach Sam Mitchell, who, by most accounts, has the chops to be an NBA head coach. But Mitchell can't coach chemistry, and the team has none. Last week, Mitchell was so incensed that he had to be restrained from going after C Loren Woods and PG Rafer Alston after they had been given technical fouls.Trading SG Vince Carter is the first job, and the Raptors are making progress toward that--the team turned down an offer of PF Shareef Abdur-Rahim from Portland, in part because they want to give PF Chris Bosh room to develop.

Position/player/team   Share of team's offense   Record

SG Kobe Bryant                 27.8%              10-7
Laker

PF Dirk Nowitzki               27.6%              12-6
Mavericks

PG Allen Iverson               26.7%              6-10
76ers

SF LeBron James                25.9%              11-6
Cavaliers

SG Tracy McGrady               25.0%              7-11
Rockets

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