



LOS ANGELES – The engagement of Andrew Bynum comes and goes, and that's why the best center in these NBA playoffs sat for hours on a bus inside of Arco Arena on Thursday night. Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol chatted on the Los Angeles Lakers bench, cheering on teammates and resting themselves for the start of the NBA playoffs. Bynum never joined them, sources said. He never left the bus. He strapped his earphones around his head, bobbing to beats. For hours, Bynum curled up into a seat, waiting for the Lakers to drive him back to the airport, back to the playoffs.

He had come into these playoffs the way he left them a year ago: All alone. The forever memory of that Lakers collapse was Bynum crushing little Jose Barea late in Game 4 of the Dallas Mavericks' sweep. There would come an ejection, embarrassment and a suspension, a monument to a lost season, a last dance for Phil Jackson.

And so, Bynum reached one final time into the air of the Staples Center on Sunday, reached toward the rafters and those 16 championship banners and sent one more Denver Nuggets shot careening back. He had been historically dominant on Sunday, punctuating the first triple-double of his career with his 10th block late in the Lakers' 103-88 Game 1 victory.

No one missed Metta World Peace. No one talked about Kobe Bryant's 31 points. Pau Gasol had 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and it still felt so much smaller when Bynum went for 10 points, 13 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. Only Hakeem Olajuwon and Mark Eaton had ever turned back so many shots in a playoff game.

For all the blocks, there were so many more shots that changed course, that were disrupted. Nuggets coach George Karl called it a "nice illegal defense," but even the referees can't bail out his team should Bynum be so inclined to destroy it.

"If he continues to play like he did, we'll be playing a long time," Lakers coach Mike Brown said. "He can control a game without shooting a single shot if he wanted to."

[Related: Andrew Bynum's 10 blocks tie NBA playoff record]

Well, Andrew Bynum doesn't want to do that. He wants the ball, wants to score and wants to dominate everywhere on the floor. Only, the ball is spread through the genius offensive talents of Bryant and Gasol, and that's something that Bynum still struggles to accept. Sometimes, he holds the defense and rebounding hostage on these Lakers: Give me some shots, and I'll give you what you need.

When someone asked how a record 10 blocked shots compares to, say, a 30-point performance, Bynum knew the political response everyone wanted to hear. Well, he wasn't giving it. He's supposed to say that blocking those shots is the most important thing in the world to him, because that's what the Lakers mostly need out of him. Yet, Bynum wants to be a superstar, and superstars score the ball. This was his best, most complete offensive season with nearly 19 points a game, but he can do more, and everyone knows it.

"Obviously, I want to score points, but that's not always available to me," Bynum said. The blocked shots? "The next best thing," he called them.

Bynum is so young, 24 years old, and yet this is his seventh season in the NBA. Habits form. Development slows. Slowly, surely, you become what you will always be: Sometimes brilliant, sometimes detached and forever an enigma. At the trade deadline in February, the Lakers were willing to part with Bynum for Orlando center Dwight Howard. The Lakers wanted an assurance that Howard would sign a contract extension, and he wouldn't give it, sources in the talks said.

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