DALLAS — As the Lakers’ schedule last month took Kobe Bryant through Chicago and New York – two of the four cities on Bryant’s preseason list of trade destinations – he stoked the fire of locals by openly acknowledging his interest in their cities.
In his first visit of the season to Dallas, the only other place on the list besides Lakers rival Phoenix, Bryant made one flippant remark about how good it could’ve been to join the Mavericks. But he was otherwise direct Thursday in appreciating what he has with the developing Lakers.
Asked if he is in his best situation with the Lakers since the 2004 Shaquille O’Neal trade, Bryant said: “I would say so.”
“We have a really good situation,” he said. “I’m very pleased with the development of our young players. They all have a confidence about them and a swagger about them that I really enjoy. They have a great work ethic. I couldn’t be more pleased with the development of (Andrew) Bynum. I’ve really been pleased to see how hard he has been working and how he stepped up his work ethic from last season.”
In December, the Lakers were five games above the .500 mark when they got to Chicago and six games above .500 when they got to New York.
Now, a month later, they are 14 games above .500, even after losing in San Antonio on Wednesday night. And the sense that Bryant has retaken ownership in the Lakers’ operation runs deep. He even reflected Thursday on past years by using the “R” word that triggered much of his anger in late May when he concluded Lakers owner Jerry Buss misled him about the club’s intention to win immediately in 2004.
“Obviously we’ve had a period there where we really struggled trying to rebuild everything,” Bryant said. “And right now we’re playing well. Even though we’ve got a couple of key guys out defensively, we’re still managing to do a pretty good job. We’re a deep ballclub.”
Asked if this is the ideal result for him after all the offseason wrangling, Bryant said: “It certainly seems that way.” Then he chuckled and added: “Unless they were going to send me here to Dallas with Dirk (Nowitzki), you know what I mean?”
But Bryant then continued raving about his Lakers situation. He said this challenging, road-heavy stretch of the schedule won’t be a fair gauge of this team’s ability to win the Western Conference because of its injuries. He said the goal for the near future is simply to “improve as a ballclub.”
“So when we get those key guys back,” Bryant said, “we’re able to get even better and go up another notch.”
