Why Kobe Bryant's Leadership Is Biggest Key to Building Successful Lakers Future

In a day and age where everyone's saying all the right things, Kobe Bryant couldn't be happier to go against the grain. Sometimes that's what it takes to speak the truth.

It's the kind of truth that sets locker rooms free, even if it doesn't feel that way at the time. The kind of truth that turns star athletes into icons of a different kind. The kind that's long made Kobe Bryant the NBA's quintessential fearless leader—fearless, but no stranger to being feared.

Dwight Howard wanted to be loved, but Bryant's always known it's better to be feared.

Machiavelli spoiled how this one ends a long time ago. And Grantland's Bill Simmons wasn't far behind him. He saw the writing on the wall back in December, speculating that "[Bryant] might be turning on Dwight Howard already" thanks to a critical mass of emergent, thinly veiled clues.

Even before the Howard experiment, we already knew a few things about Bryant's leadership style. In the same piece, Simmons describes it aptly:  

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It's just a different way to lead a basketball team: through fear, through conflict, through bullying, through the media. He leads by example, and if you don't like that example, he reminds you how many rings he has (with the implication being, "Shut up"). When Jackson and Derek Fisher were around, Kobe's leadership was actually effective — something of a good cop/bad cop dynamic developed, with Kobe pushing the team competitively and the other two guys handling everything else. Now it's just him.

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The idea was for Bryant to share that responsibility with Steve Nash, or at least that's how ESPN's Henry Abbott saw it coming into the season. While allowing for the possibility their mixed messaging could cause confusion, Abbott was at least partially sold on Amin Elhassan's point that Nash and Bryant would yield "the perfect marriage of good cop, bad cop."

And guess which one's Kobe.

Bryant's honesty may offend some sensibilities, but he's proven an equal-opportunity offender. He even told longtime comrade Pau Gasol to "put his big-boy pants on" fresh into last season's nascent difficulties (per ESPN Los Angeles' Dave McMenamin), and that was just months after the last time he'd had words with Gasol via the media. 

If it's Kobe the Tyrannical in whom you're interested, look no further than Smush Parker. Bryant had some choice words for his ex-teammate heading into last season, calling him "the worst" of an underwhelming rotation in 2006 according to OCRegister.com's Janis Carr.

If Bryant's unafraid to engage his teammates face to face, it should be no surprise he's willing to do so in public—even when they don't play with him anymore.

To argue Bryant's leadership is now more essential than ever isn't to say it's been perfect. But it would be a mistake to entirely dismiss the value of a straight-shooter, especially for an organization on the verge of transformation.

For all Howard's talent, he was nowhere close to taking the torch from Bryant. His only opportunity to do so would have required a swift swallowing of undeserved pride, a willingness to learn. Bryant reportedly extended one last offer to take Howard under his wing at the 11th hour of his free-agent decision, but the chance to become the veteran himself in Houston was too much to turn down.

That's not the pedigree that's going to cut it in Los Angeles.

The next generation of talent general manager Mitch Kupchak gets his hands on should be vetted for their willingness to watch Kobe and learn. From there, you can rest assured Bryant will take care of the rest.

In concrete terms, that means a couple things.  

First, and despite all this talk about talking, Bryant will lead by example. It's something we've seen throughout the better part of his 17-year career, but it's also something that was obscured for most of that time—by Phil Jackson's brilliance, Shaq's personality and of course Kobe's own omnipresent talent.

But the Kobe we've seen lately—particularly in his injured vulnerability—has led with a silent grace, showing up on crutches to support his teammates in the first round, exuding enough confidence for the rest of us, maintaining some measure of dignity in Los Angeles' darkest hour.

And oh yeah, when he did the thing shooting free throws with a torn Achilles.

Second, Bryant's vocal leadership will establish important norms for the new blood, whoever they may be and whenever they may show up.

For all the contractual obligations that define professional life in the NBA, it's the unwritten rules that provide players a context in which to succeed. Whether that means internalizing the importance of rigorous workout routines or knowing when it's time to cough up the ball and get out of the way, there will be no ambiguity.

Howard may have missed Bryant's none-too-subtle memo coming into 2012-13, but the rest of us heard it loud and clear. This was Kobe's team then, and it's Kobe's team now more than ever.

Who better to lead the way?