Kobe has been vocal and competitive in training camp, according to Coach Phil Jackson, but is still figuring out what Jackson wants in playing the guard position. For the first time since his summer of discontent with the Lakers, Kobe Bryant donned "the golden armor," as he has often called it, when the team opened the exhibition season Tuesday night here against Golden State.
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And how has Bryant been in training camp as a Lakers teammate and leader in his first week back in the fold?
"He has been competitive," Coach Phil Jackson said. "He has been very vocal as a leader with these guys. Without Lamar (Odom) on the floor, he has started to pick it up a little bit."
Asked if Bryant has been pushing the sort of team-building concepts Jackson would like, the coach said: "Some of it is good. We've talked a little bit about what I'd like to see that's not apparent yet. That's a new (offensive) role, and it takes some guidance for him to see that."
Jackson intends to play Bryant more at guard this season after two years of letting him loose at small forward. Even with guard Derek Fisher's return to the team, Bryant knows better than anyone how to set up the triangle offense and set up teammates for shots, ocregister.com reports.
Now Bryant is being asked to set teammates up before the triangle is really set up, too. Jackson wants the Lakers to look for more early offense on each possession. He said he wants Bryant "not to come out of the backcourt with a thought in mind of how it's going to happen down at the other end of the court."
"We're doing a different type of an offense," Jackson said. "And a lot of it is less manufacturing offense. Just throwing the ball ahead, pushing guys to run, using lead passes to encourage running. If nothing works out in the first seven seconds of the 24-second clock, then organize the offense."
The Lakers' off-season was unpredictable, volatile and everything else, and Jeanie Buss has tried to put it in perspective.
Buss, the team's executive vice president of business operations, watched the last several months mostly from afar, jumping into the mix for a bit to defend her longtime companion, Coach Phil Jackson, on a talk-radio show.
When Oct. 1 rolled around and Kobe Bryant put on a Lakers uniform at media day, an off-season of tumult faded a little further into the background.
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