Los Angeles Lakers Must Develop Identity That Extends Beyond Kobe Bryant

For nearly two decades now, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers have been synonymous.

But as an epic journey hastens toward its inevitable conclusion, a simple reality can no longer be ignored—the team has to develop its own sustainable identity.

Hanging on for their second win of the season against the Atlanta Hawks, the Purple and Gold took one small step in the right direction Tuesday night.

The longstanding face of the franchise led the way with 28 points. In doing so, he reached yet another of his many career milestones.

But make no mistake, breaking a four-game skid took a team effort.

Bryant’s contract extends through the end of next season—his 20th in Los Angeles. It is a remarkable span of time.

Few teams in professional sports have ever had as forceful and domineering a personality as Bryant. No team in basketball has ever had a 20-year run with one player.

John Stockton was the closet at 19 with the Utah Jazz. Tim Duncan is currently not far behind Bryant at 18 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs. And then there is Dirk Nowitzki who has embodied the Dallas Mavericks for 17 years.

But perhaps the Spurs and Duncan provide the most vivid juxtaposition to the Mamba’s narrative. San Antonio’s success has long been predicated on the sum being greater than its parts. Yet even so, they will find it hard to move on.

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

So how on earth can a team find its own way forward when one player so defiantly and resolutely blazes his own path for all to follow?

With two wins in 11 tries, this has been a team with a dwindling common purpose as of late, falling sullenly in line behind the league’s leading scorer. Develop an identity beyond their iconoclastic firebrand? His teammates can’t even avoid being lapped by him.

But the win against Atlanta showed that moments of sharing could finally become contagious.

It didn’t hurt that Nick “Swaggy P” Young contributed 17 points off the bench in his long-awaited return from thumb surgery.

And in an encouraging sign of collective purpose, Jeremy Lin had a bounce-back night with 15 points and 10 assists, while Jordan Hill and Carlos Boozer each scored and rebounded in double digits. 

Can the Lakers’ new head coach build on this slim win and create a team concept that can self-nurture and grow?

Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding recently wrote about the fundamental problem with a low-rent roster that is further diminished by Byron Scott’s star treatment of an aging legend:

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You want to build the team around Bryant's free rein on offense while he is encouraged to "rest"—Scott's own word—on defense, yet every other guy is being held to fantastic standards that must be met for the team to overachieve?

How is anyone besides Kobe ever going to think that's cool? Resentment is bound to build, especially when Bryant is so unabashed in competitive zeal that he described his view on his teammates' passivity Sunday night thus: "Can't just sit back and watch crime happen."

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This is the dilemma facing one of sports’s enduring franchises, and there doesn’t seem to be any cohesive plan at all. But perhaps the organization has simply consigned itself to standing by and watching as a supernova flames out.

It is the idea that the team can rise from the ashes, once Bryant is gone.

It’s a terrible plan, and an indefensible way to bid farewell to a guy whose five championship banners are such an integral part of the team's overall legacy.

But if this is the problem, how can Los Angeles get past it? Can a sustainable working model be created and extended, no matter who is on the floor? That work would have to start immediately, not two years from now.

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

This past summer, Scott announced a plan that seemed perfectly feasible. It was the idea of combining aspects of the Princeton and triangle systems in order to share scoring opportunities. It was the notion of bolstering the offense with team defense, about limiting Bryant’s minutes and helping the helpers.

Recently, that methodology seemed to fly out the window. It may be that Scott simply strayed down the wrong road with the best of intentions. During his last year as an NBA player, the former Showtime guard mentored a precocious rookie named Bryant.

All these years later, he felt so identified to that same player, that a blind fealty formed to their championship pedigrees. 

And when a winning streak didn’t start clicking with a group of lesser lights, the latest Lakers coach simply reverted to the easiest and most obvious plan imaginable—he took the bridle off his favorite aging superstar and let him sprint toward a far-off finish line.

For at least one stop along the road, however, a leader slowed his pace and the pack began to catch up.

Change has to start somewhere, and in the world of sports—so defined from one event to the next—a single win on the road can begin to rebuild fractured trust. Finger-pointing turns to camaraderie, even if fragile and often fleeting.

What could or should an elusive new identity be? It could be system basketball, if Scott is strong enough to implement it.

Perhaps he can find the right balance between loyalty, encouragement and tough love.

The win in Atlanta wasn’t completely redemptive—the Lakers nearly blew a 15-point halftime lead.

But on a night when the only L.A. narrative could have been a legend's points total, the team remembered that rebounding mattered, and the ball began to find lost energy and movement.

And a guy who loves to score every bit as much as Bryant returned to action.

What will the Lakers’ identity be once Bryant is gone? It’s impossible to predict right now. Look how many years it took for the Chicago Bulls to regroup once Michael Jordan left.

Ultimately, Scott needs to take a step back—to a more pragmatic plan of development.

It’s time to regroup, to put aside blame and unrealistic expectations. It’s time to grow young players and establish lasting fundamentals, and to teach defense rather than demand it.

It must be maddening for the two former champions. They have tasted greatness before and desire it again.

But their success this season lies not in the past, but in developing an identity for the future—one that will extend beyond Bryant’s final curtain call.