Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Unfortunately, the Lakers are Bryant's team

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Even when they were winning, they wrestled over whose team the Lakers were.

Were they Shaquille O'Neal's team? Were they Kobe Bryant's team?

It was one of those inane arguments that has become so much a part of sports in the modern era.

It's funny how we never heard the Detroit Pistons arguing over whether the team belonged to Ben Wallace or Rasheed Wallace. Never heard Chauncey Billups or Richard Hamilton arguing over who should have the basketball in his hands.

And when they were together in San Antonio, Tim Duncan and David Robinson never fought over the ball, or the billing.

But in Los Angeles, with the Lakers, the debate has raged for the past five years.

It was childish to listen to and even more childish to watch.

We watched Lakers games and wondered why O'Neal, the most unstoppable force in the game, wouldn't touch the ball trip after trip down the floor.

We watched as Bryant morphed the triangle offense into his own dribble-thon, slaloming around defenses, looking like a center in ice hockey killing a penalty.

There have been periods in the past five years when Bryant treated the triangle offense as if it were his personal showcase. He hoisted wild, improbable shots at the end of the shot clock that stalled the Lakers and ignited their opponents.
 
Coach Phil Jackson called these flights of folly "willful," but Bryant made just enough of them to justify his irrational shot selection.

Bryant and O'Neal won three championships together, but the longer they were together, the worse their relationship got.

O'Neal grew tired of Bryant's hubris. Bryant's teammates got tired of his selfishness.

And we watched it all painfully unravel over the past two weeks as the Pistons humbled the Lakers in a five-game NBA Finals series that felt like a sweep.

Bryant practically single-handedly destroyed the Lakers' dynasty. He stopped listening to Jackson. He stopped passing to O'Neal. He took the ball away from Gary Payton, and he sucked the joy out of the locker room.

Defiantly he made jet-lag-mocking round trips from Los Angeles to the courthouse in Eagle, Colo., to the sold-out Staples Center. And as saccharine commentators oozed about how Bryant was "going through so much," he would wipe the sleep from his eyes on these round-trip days and score 40 points, and the Lakers would win.

And the enabling Lakers fans cheered him as if he were their liberator. They chanted "Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!" every time he swished a fallaway jumper just before the shot clock buzzed.

Poor Kobe, he was on trial. Poor Kobe, he was having problems with teammates.

Poor Kobe?

He brought all of it on himself.

Poor Kobe?

In Game 4, when a rested O'Neal was having a Wilt Chamberlain-like game, Bryant grabbed the ball out of his hands in the second half and hoisted crazy shots that fueled the Pistons' fast break and doomed the Lakers.

An era died prematurely.

And last week Lakers owner Jerry Buss had a decision to make about the direction of the team. Keep Jackson and Shaq? Or keep Kobe?

It should have been easy. Buss made it hard.

Buss went with the glitz. He took the guy who is going to stand trial for sexual assault. He took the guy who took the ball out of O'Neal's hands.

Whose team is it?

Buss answered that emphatically.

Last Friday, a day that must have felt like the 13th to intelligent Lakers fans, Buss let Jackson escape to his Montana ranch, from where, probably a year from now, he will emerge to coach again — in Dallas or Sacramento, Chicago or New York.

Last Friday, O'Neal demanded to be traded. And Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said he would try.

Just imagine how much fun the Lakers will be next year if Kupchak can't trade O'Neal. They don't even make soap operas this ugly.

The Lakers are Kobe Bryant's team now. He wanted Jackson gone, and Buss allowed it. It was Buss' first step in assuring Bryant will remain a Laker.

At 25, awaiting a trial that could put him in jail for the rest of his basketball career, free agent Bryant has the opportunity to get everything he's ever wanted from the Lakers.

The triangle will go the way of the picket fence. The offense will be his to use and abuse in whatever manner he wishes. If he's out of jail, he will put up numbers that will make him feel regal.

You can be assured that an important personnel decision won't be made without contacting Bryant. The new coach will have Bryant's stamp of approval.

(Note to former Sonics coach George Karl, who is one of the names mentioned to replace Jackson: Don't do it! Don't be swayed by your North Carolina connections to Kupchak. Don't think you can re-create history with Payton.)

This team will belong to Kobe, not the coach. The Lakers are his now.

Dynasty? R.I.P.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists