



CHICAGO – Everyone else on these Los Angeles Lakers had showered, dressed and bundled themselves to march out into the coldest night across the past two winters here. As the clock lurched past midnight in the losing locker room, the team bus gone, Kobe Bryant still wore his purple and gold jersey inside a tiny cubicle.





For some reason, he was holding onto one more night, one more loss, a little longer on Monday. He had marched past the Michael Jordan statue in the United Center, embraced Scottie Pippen courtside and understood he had never been so far away from those six championship banners hanging above him.

One more to go, and yet Monday night had been another cruel installment that Bryant no longer plays on a championship contender, that the parts, the system, the plan, is spiraling deeper and deeper into the abyss. Seven games under .500, four games out of the playoff picture and an unraveling in the final minutes of a 95-83 loss to the Chicago Bulls.

So far, these Lakers are a failure. So far, a bust.

"Obviously, this isn't working," Bryant told Yahoo! Sports.

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It isn't working for Pau Gasol, who has lost his starting job to Earl Clark. It isn't working for Dwight Howard, who grumbled privately in the locker room over the truths on the stat sheet. Most of all, it isn't working for the Los Angeles Lakers, on course to be remembered as one of pro sports' biggest debacles.

On the issue of coach Mike D'Antoni stripping Gasol of his starting job, Bryant responded with a long, telling silence and smirk when pressed on whether he believed Gasol's benching made these Lakers a better basketball team.

On the issue of Howard's belief that the ball simply doesn't go through him enough on offense, Bryant rejected the premise.

"I've tried to go out of my way to get him the ball," Bryant told Y! Sports. "Sometimes I end up looking like an idiot, because I get up in the air, I've got a shot, but I try to find him. But he thinks I'm going to shoot, so his back is turned. I'm trying to think about getting him the ball a lot – take care of him as much as I possibly can. It takes me out of rhythm a little bit, but I'm fine with that. If that's going to help our team, I'm more than willing to do that."

When Howard did get the ball on Monday, he missed four of eight free throws. He let the Bulls strip him. He missed three of his five shots. His aggression seems to come and go, on offense and defense. Perhaps it's the back; perhaps it's something else.

"I've constantly tried to help him out, tried to talk to him," Bryant said. "Two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning. Texting him. Sharing reading materials. Anything to try and help him.

"He's coming off a major surgery in a market where it's just merciless; where there's demands and responsibilities of athletes. It's been tough on him."

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Deep into the fourth quarter, within a basket, the Lakers crumbled to the Bulls. As one Western Conference assistant coach told Y! Sports, "If you just keep running your stuff, trust your offense, they will eventually break down on defense. You'll get what you want."

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