And really, with the additions of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, the Lakers are talented enough on paper where a coach doesn’t seem all that necessary. As Bryant shows us with his next quip, he, and he alone, represents the Lakers. 7. “It’s not like if you ask Dwight or if you ask myself, we don’t dislike each other at all. It’s not like when Shaq and I were feuding. We didn’t want to be around each other. With me and Dwight, that’s just not the situation. It’s not like we’re best friends either, but it’s a good understanding I think.” Kobe talked about his relationship with Dwight Howard to Michael Wilbon in mid-March and provided a much more realistic picture than Howard ever will. Kobe can stretch the truth, but is reliably a no-BS player in his dealings with media. Howard, however, wants everyone to like him. You can’t always trust what he says knowing he’ll put a veneer over a team’s cracks. Case in point: Kobe on Dwight: “He’s a very nice kid who wants to say the right things and please as many people as he can but he can’t please everybody.” â€” Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) March 10, 2013 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsSo why is this important? This season the temptation to view the Lakers’ season from extremes (They’ll never make the playoffs! suddenly became They’re a dangerous team in the playoffs!) is extremely strong, and we’re guilty of it, as well. Howard’s attitude follows that curve, but Bryant’s been some how a voice of reason, injecting the gray into a team judged on black-or-white, the “maybe” answer into a yes or no question. When he’s asked about his relationship with Howard, Bryant is honest when he says it’s still evolving. They’re not sworn enemies nor off-the-court buddies, but they’re somewhere in the middle working it out. That’s refreshing, even if it isn’t the easy to digest answer readers and viewers want instantly. Bryant’s telling us that building playoff teams takes time, because building trust does, too. 6. “That’s kind of like, where are your balls at?” No, Kobe wasn’t talking about a teammate, as some/most of you thought when you saw the headline. Instead, it was in relation to Kobe’s abhorrence of flopping. Last season, the NBA, in conjunction with ESPN’s True Hoop site, made flopping an issue, and this past offseason fines were put in place for any instance of flopping found during a postgame review. But last May, ESPN LA’s McMenamin was writing about something else Kobe hates to do: take a charge. Kobe said he’s only taken one charge in his career and it was probably a mistake. He saw what taking charges did to the backs of Larry Bird and Scottie Pippen, and he saw that Magic and MJ didn’t take many charges, and stayed largely healthy throughout their Hall of Fame careers. But when McMenamin brought up flopping, Kobe made sure he knew the difference between taking a charge and flopping: “There’s a difference [between taking a charge and flopping]. We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren’t really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water. That’s kind of like, where are your balls at?” So Kobe hates to take charges and almost never does because of the risk of injury, but a feigned injury or foul is a lack of testicular fortitude. How can you not find Kobe Bryant delightful, especially as he’s become like a cantankerous uncle making inappropriate comments while everyone else in the family just says “Oh Kobe.” But Kobe’s comments haven’t always provoked the slightly bemused reaction his thoughts on flopping did. No, when he went after former teammate Smush Parker, it seemed a little strange, since Parker hadn’t played with Bryant since the 2006-07 season. 5. “They can all kiss my ass as I’m sure he feels the same way. If you score 138 points, you kind of have a license to tell people to f— off.” After Jack Taylor dropped 138 points for tiny, Grinnell College in a Division III basketball game, both Kevin Ding for the Orange County Register and Dave McMenamin for ESPN Los Angeles reported Bryant’s thoughts about Taylor’s performance. Kobe gave them what they wanted: a no holds bar paean to Taylor’s cold blooded scoring prowess. Kobe’s full reaction to Taylor’s achievement was – as is typical this season – entertaining. As is what he thinks the reaction would have been if he had scored 138 points in an NBA game (remember, he scored 81). Reporter: Kobe, a college kid scored 138 points tonight and took over 100 shots …

Bryant: Wow … No kidding? Where?

Reporter: Grinnell College in Iowa.

Bryant: Really? Wow. That’s impressive. That’s crazy. I don’t care what level you’re at. Scoring 138 points is pretty insane. How many 3s did he shoot?

Reporter: 71.

Bryant: Holy shit. How many points did they score as a team?

Reporter: 179.

Bryant: What?!

Reporter: No other starter had double figures.

Bryant: That’s incredible. Reporter: Dude on the other team scored 71 points and lost.

Bryant: That’s amazing. He must have been wearing the Mambas, man. Only Mambas have no conscience to shoot the ball like that.

Reporter: If you did that, would people be celebrating you?

Bryant: Would people be celebrating me if I scored 138 points? You know how it is, some people would, some people wouldn’t. They can all kiss my a– as I’m sure he feels the same way. If you score 138 points, you kind of have a license to tell people to f— off. And really, what did we expect? Kobe is all about scoring, as he noted in the quote before, and when a guy goes off like that – no matter the level – he’s going to win the admiration of Kobe Bryant. But Kobe has been less effusive with his own teammates, whether former teammates he bizarrely has an axe to grind with, or current teammates he’s imploring to give him more.

4. “I’m like Neo out this m—– f—–“

We’ve learned, in Bryant’s inaugural season on Twitter, that he’s a bit of a cinephile. Hard to not be being rich and famous in Los Angeles, we suppose. For example just in the last week he’s revealed he loves quoting “Wedding Crashers” (we can’t blame him) and also drew inspiration from several Best Picture nominees from this year’s Academy Awards. To wit: Compression. Ice. Django. Zero Dark Thirty. This is Forty and 1 hour of sleep. #countonwill #countonhaters. On to the next. â€” Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 14, 2013 “Rule number 76. No excuses. Play like a champion” Vince Vaughn. Wedding Crashers. â€” Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 6, 2013 MT @paulpabst Kobe on DJ’s dunk: “That was like the scene in Final Destination when the guy steps off the curb and the bus hits him.” â€” Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) March 12, 2013 Before those missives, however, Bryant sat at his locker after dishing out 11 dimes on Jan. 29 (giving him 39 in three games) and discussed with ESPN LA’s Dave McMenamin what it was like to turn the tables on everyone. Kobe, in year 17, go from a scorer to a passer? And then he dropped a line out of nowhere referencing the hottest movie of 1999, The Matrix. “I’m like Neo out this m—– f—–“ Suddenly we were left wondering so many things. Why this movie? Can he bend time (game clocks) and opponents’ wills like Neo could avoid bullets? Is it a coincidence we never see Neo and Laurence Fishburne in the same room?



3. “Fear? Fear for what? Only thing I fear is bees. … I don’t f— with bees, man. Other than that, I’m not afraid of nothing.” On March 8, Bryant produced one of the more two-faced games of his career. On one hand he had nine turnovers. On the other, he had 41 points, 12 assists and hit three giant three-pointers to lead the Lakers in a come-from-behind win against the Raptors. On one from above the arc’s break, he lost his dribble while simultaneously having Toronto’s Alan Anderson in his shorts but still drilled a line-drive three. Nothing could faze the guy once he hit the fourth quarter. After the game when reporters asked him about his role in almost single-handedly bringing the Lakers back in the final two minutes, he revealed what many players feel: Why would I be scared on the court? Kobe doesn’t fear any man. But … he doesn’t f— with bees. He held court in a media scrum afterward and his quotes about existentialist fear and bees were transmitted by ESPN’s McMenamin and Ramona Shelburne. It seems to be the standard procedure for Bryant this season, arguably his most transparent and open in his career â€” and not just because of his Twitter handle. Maybe it’s because he’s more introspective or possibly he’s like an older person who says whatever is on his mind knowing there’s not much time left in his career. What the reason, he’s pulled back the onion skin bit by bit, and shown us a real person underneath, one who’s scared of bees. But then, just as soon as he shows a bit of vulnerability, he flashes his Kobe venom-face and reminds everyone that he fears no man.