[FLORIDA TODAY]McGrady:"Kobe just doesn't realize how lucky to play with a big man"

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/sportstoryS1112LAKERS.htm

BY JOHN DENTON
FLORIDA TODAY



ORLANDO -- Before he was traded to Houston and ultimately teamed with 7-foot-6 center Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady used to look on at Kobe Bryant from afar and marvel at the support he got from massive center Shaquille O'Neal.

He would watch Bryant gamble defensively, knowing full well that if he got beat, the 350-pound O'Neal would be lurking down low. McGrady saw how having a dominant big man like O'Neal opened up the court for Bryant, giving him single coverage and clear driving lanes. And maybe most importantly, McGrady noticed that Bryant rarely, if ever, hit the floor as teams knew that Shaq had his back if things ever got physical.

"Man, that dude just doesn't realize how lucky he's got it," McGrady would say regularly.

Bryant apparently didn't share that same opinion with McGrady. Depending on whom you believe, O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in July, in part, because Bryant no longer wanted to play with him. Head coach Phil Jackson, also let go by the Los Angeles Lakers at Bryant's request, claimed in his book, The Last Season, that the star shooting guard said, "I'm tired of being a sidekick" to O'Neal.

Bryant got his wish and will take the floor tonight at the TD Waterhouse Centre against the Orlando Magic (3-2) without O'Neal's gargantuan shadow eclipsing him. The Lakers are a dramatically different team that won three consecutive championships and reached the NBA Finals again last season. The Lakers are a pedestrian 3-3 after being routed Wednesday by Memphis, and many feel that Los Angeles is a far cry from being a championship team again any time soon. As the old saying goes, maybe Bryant should have been more careful about what he wished for.

He'll likely never escape the tarnish that came with the alleged rape of a hotel worker in Colorado although those charges were ultimately dropped before a trial ever began. And his one-man mutiny, one that shattered the Lakers dynasty, is sure to follow him well into the twilight of a Hall of Fame career.

Bryant can have all the shots and limelight he wants now, but with a starting lineup that includes Chris Mihm and Brian Grant, the Lakers often stack up short in the rugged Western Conference. He ranks third in the NBA in scoring at 27.7 points per game, but the points have come with him shooting just 37.7 percent from the floor, well below his career average of 45.3 percent.

Too often, he's been in a shoot-first, pass-second mode, hoisting up jumpers that didn't come within the context of the offense. He is finally free from Jackson's triangle offense, one he often found to be juvenile and constricting. And there's no more deferring to O'Neal down low. He's free to fire away now, but there are conflicting opinions from around the NBA on just what that will mean to the Lakers.

Orlando guard Cuttino Mobley, who has had success defending Bryant in the past but is questionable for tonight's game because of a groin injury, thinks Bryant is a more dangerous offensive threat with O'Neal now playing on South Beach.

"He gets to do more now that he's not with Shaq," Mobley said. "It's kind of like Steve (Francis) and I were with Yao in Houston. You never know when you're going to be given that freedom when you are playing with a big man. I think it's harder to guard Kobe now. When Shaq was getting the ball, you had some rest periods. But now you have to stay ready because Kobe is going to be attacking all the time."

But Seattle guard Ray Allen was highly critical of Bryant in the preseason, saying that Bryant's aggressiveness would come at a cost to his other Lakers teammates. He also sees the correlation between Bryant now and McGrady, who led the NBA in scoring the past two seasons while he was in Orlando, but did little winning because there wasn't much of a supporting cast around him.

"He's going to be very selfish and he feels like he needs to show this league and the people in this country that he is better without Shaq," Allen told The Los Angeles Times. "He can win championships with Shaq. So offensively now he's going to jump out and say, 'I can average 30 points and I can still carry the load on this team.'

"I think the point production is not going to be so much what people are looking at because McGrady did that in Orlando. But can (Bryant) win a championship? I think that's the question. Carrying guys on your back and making everybody better . . . can he do that? He has the talent and he can do it. But is his attitude going to allow him to take a back seat and let Lamar Odom shine and let Caron Butler have his nights and bring those guys along with him?"

Despite the knocks against him, in a recent NBA.com survey, 81 percent of the general managers in the NBA said they would most like to have Bryant taking the final shot with the game on the line. Of course, Bryant has proven in the past that he's going to hoist that shot regardless of what anybody thinks.

But the grind of being the Lakers' solo go-to scorer might already be taking its toll on Bryant. Following Wednesday's loss in Memphis when he missed 15 of 19 shots, Bryant disclosed that team doctors had diagnosed him with having plantar fasciitis in his left foot, a condition in which the connective tissue in the arch of the foot is inflamed. And maybe, just maybe a touch of reality has started to set in with Bryant.

"I can go off solo and get 50 or 60 points on these guys, but that doesn't mean we're going to win," he said.

Contact Denton at jd41898@aol.com