Perimeter Players

Top of the Key (Dribble Drive Elbow Jumpers)

Wing to Elbow / Elbow to Elbow Jumpers

Ball Screen Shooting

Split Ball Screen Shooting

Post Players

Sideline to Elbow Shooting / Conditioning

Drop Step Dunk / Lay-up Drill / Conditioning

Second of a Three Part Series

Excerpts from Phil Jackson's new book.

The meeting with Kobe reinforced an idea I had been contemplating since July, since Colorado, since everything changed. I decided to enlist a therapist to help me cope with what will surely be the most turbulent season of my coaching career. After receiving a few recommendations, I selected a therapist who has dealt with narcissistic behavior in the Los Angeles public school system. He'll be right at home here.

OCTOBER 21 Los Angeles

I wonder what Kobe is thinking. Yesterday he reiterated his intention to opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. I would never oppose a player's desire to explore his true market value -- if only the players in my era had been granted a similar freedom -- but I do question his sense of timing. Since the charges were made, Kobe has been treated remarkably well by the Lakers organization and the fans. He gave his press conference at Staples with our blessing, and we have agreed -- once we attained permission from the league to make sure the funds wouldn't be applied to the salary cap -- to cover a percentage of his private plane expenses to and from Colorado for court hearings. This will cost thousands of dollars. Kobe was unhappy with the type of plane that was selected; he wanted one with higher status

OCTOBER 28 Los Angeles

After going 3-5 during the exhibition season we started serious preparations a few days ago for, at long last, tonight's opener at Staples against the Dallas Mavericks.While we put together probably only one decent half in eight games, this is a veteran group that will know how to perform when everything matters. This being the Lakers, the longest-running soap opera in professional sports, there has been plenty of intrigue off the court over the last seventy-two hours. The stars of the newest episode? Why, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, of course. Their most recent feud had taken place in early 2001. After a two-year hiatus, the duo have reunited -- wrong word, I suppose -- for a sequel. I heard the news while checking out video of the Mavericks, trying to devise a game plan to disrupt their highly explosive attack. There was a knock at the door. Kobe walked in, anxious to talk about another highly explosive attack. "He popped off," Kobe said. I did not have to ask who "he" was. "You're kidding me," I said. "What did he say?" "Did you read the paper? It's in the paper," he said. It was in the paper, all right, Shaq suggesting that for the Lakers to be successful this season, Kobe, who played in only two exhibition contests, needed to rely more on his teammates until he regained his full strength. "Is this what you're talking about?" I asked Kobe. "Yeah," he said. "Kobe, what's wrong with this?" I said. "Shaq is right. This is exactly what we want you to do." .... But the anger did not disappear. After practice, Kobe fired back at Shaquille, through the press, exactly as he promised he would in August. "I definitely don't need advice on how to play my game," he said. "I know how to play my guard spot. He can worry about the low post." The war was on. "He doesn't need advice on how to play his position," Shaquille said, "but he needs advice on how to play team ball. If it's going to be my team, I'll voice my opinion. If he don't like it, he can opt out." On and on it went, the two protagonists in top form. Why don't the two get along? I have my theories, one of which is that Shaquille is making the type of money -- about $25 million a year -- that Kobe will never earn due to the changes in the league's collective bargaining agreement. No matter how many MVP trophies Kobe might collect in the decade ahead, there is nothing he can do about this discrepancy. In fact, the word I got was that Kobe was the only player in the entire league who voted against the agreement because of the cap it put on salaries. The newspapers, needless to say, have treated the Kobe-Shaq feud as if it were the second coming of Cain versus Abel. IT'S THE RETURN OF STAR WARS was the headline in the Los Angeles Times. The story was destined to last for days and days, every basketball reporter in the city, maybe the nation, on a scavenger hunt for the next insult or innuendo to filter through the grapevine. There was only so much the Lakers could do to try to tame the beast, and whatever we were going to do, we had to act fast. I placed a call to the therapist. "Get them apart," he recommended. "Tell them that what they're saying about each other is not doing anybody any good." He mentioned a psychological term for this damage-control strategy: suppression. I took Shaq aside, and Mitch found Kobe. "We can't have this," I told Shaq. "This isn't right. We're on a mission, and we want nothing more in the press." Shaq was not in the mood to suppress anything. "Phil, I have a stepbrother," he explained, "and when I was young, I was the outcast. Everything I did was wrong and everything he did was okay even though he did stuff that I could never get away with. If I tried to do it, they would have beaten the heck out of me. It's the same situation with Kobe. He ends up getting an operation from some doctor, who knows where, and I end up getting an operation and I'm the one criticized for it. I end up looking like crap in this thing, and he can do whatever he wants. I'd like to pound the chump." I empathized with Shaq but I told him the team needed to put the feud behind it as soon as possible. He agreed to keep quiet. This was another example of the basic difference between him and Kobe. Ask Shaq to do something and he'll say: "No, I don't want to do that." But after a little pouting, he will do it. Ask Kobe, and he'll say, "okay," and then he will do whatever he wants. Against our instructions, Kobe did an interview with ESPN, vowing that if he were to leave the Lakers at the end of the season, it would be due to Shaq's "childlike selfishness and jealousy." So much for suppression.

JANUARY 31

On the subject of losing Kobe, I wonder once again whether our relationship has deteriorated beyond repair. Earlier this week at El Segundo there was an incident at practice. On the way to the court, I asked Kobe, still nursing a sore shoulder, if he was up to doing a little running. Sure, he responded, as soon as he finished his treatment. Almost an hour went by, and there was no Kobe sighting. Finally, with an ice pack on his shoulder, he took a seat on the sideline. It began to dawn on me that contrary to what he had told me, Kobe had no intention of running. After practice I followed Kobe to the training room, asking him why he lied to me. He was being sarcastic, he said. Wrong answer. I wasn't in the mood. Believe me, I can't begin to imagine how difficult this whole ordeal has been for Kobe, but that doesn't mean I will allow myself to be the recipient of his displaced anger, especially when I've been firmly on his side since the Colorado story broke. Now I was the one who was angry. I went upstairs to see Mitch in his office. Wasting no time, I went off on a tirade about the need to deal Kobe before the trading deadline in mid-February. "I won't coach this team next year if he is still here," I said emphatically. "He won't listen to anyone. I've had it with this kid."

FEBRUARY 10 Miami

This afternoon I did something I almost never do. When Shaquille and Rick [Fox] stepped off the bus at our hotel in Coconut Grove, an upscale Miami suburb, I asked them to enter my suite for a brief chat. From the puzzled expressions on their faces, I could tell they were extremely curious, perhaps alarmed. I believe the time on the road between practice and the tip-off is almost sacred; the players should be allowed to prepare in their own ways for the challenge awaiting them. But this time I was facing my own challenge, and it had nothing to do with the Miami Heat. Recognizing that my relationship with Kobe was becoming more acrimonious by the day, I decided that a conversation with Shaq and Fox could not wait any longer. At practice the day before Kobe, who told [trainer Gary] Vitti that his finger hadn't healed sufficiently for him to play in the Miami game, was taking a few shots left-handed when I asked him not to be a distraction. I needed to work with the players who would be suiting up. "Distraction," he said, mockingly, unable to resist taking one more shot. A few hours later, during dinner in Key Biscayne with the staff, Vitti told us that Kobe has been threatening again to opt out of his contract, vowing "to take Slava [Medvedenko] with me." Slava? Was this an indication of Kobe's being totally out of touch with reality? If Kobe was interested in taking along a player who would defer to him, Slava Medvedenko was the worst choice imaginable. He hasn't passed up a shot since November. Shaq and Rick took a seat in my room. Inviting Rick, I felt, would keep the discussion at a high level. I got right to the point. "What would you guys think if I were to offer Kobe a leave of absence?" They wasted no time, either. Kobe, they promised, would contribute to the team in a positive manner once he recovered from his finger injury. I was gratified to note the genuine sense of compassion, especially coming from Kobe's supposed enemy, Shaquille. The press, I have long believed, with its sensationalistic, insult-to-insult coverage, has captured only one component in a rather complicated relationship between two proud, if emotionally fragile, superstars. Shaq and Kobe will never be buddies, but they remain linked together by a common goal, perhaps destiny, each aware that they can't win championships here without the other. With Rick and Shaquille opposed, along with Mitch, I filed the leave of absence idea away for good. "What happens if he won't accept it?" Mitch asked. In that case, I replied, I would tell Kobe that we would suspend him with pay regardless, but for PR purposes call it a "leave of absence." The choice would belong to him. I knew precisely what I would say: "Kobe, you're not a positive element with the team anymore. You can't have these kind of anger situations in front of your teammates because it's destructive to the balance that has to be maintained."