Kobe Bryant and Mike Brown getting along swimmingly, triangle ditched

There was a lot of intrigue when Mike Brown was hired because the move wasn’t cleared with Kobe Bryant. After all, the franchise is still Kobe’s now that Phil’s gone (or regardless of Phil depending on your viewpoint) until he retires. So Bryant should have been brought in on the conversation. And the idea of a star player fighting with his coach off the bat makes for good headlines. Unfortunately, it sounds like all that drama might be missing since the two have already met twice and everything’s going great. It’s a virtual budding romance. From the L.A. Times:

Despite Kobe Bryant’s silence, people close to both sides say Coach Mike Brown has won over his new star in two face-to-face meetings.

Their first was May 31 at Bryant’s home in Newport Beach, on Brown’s way to his news conference in downtown Los Angeles . . . more or less.

Apparently, the meeting went well. The second was 10 days later at the El Segundo practice facility, where they went through plays on the court.

via Lakers: Mike Brown and Kobe Bryant are just fine, thanks - latimes.com.

The Times goes on to say that the reason there’s been no word of it is because Bryant is keeping mum in a silent protest of not having been brought in on the decision. To recap: Kobe still ticked off, just not at Mike Brown.

Also interesting is this note from the New York Daily News that Brown plans to ditch the Triangle offense. That’s just crazy talk since the system has had so much success among the one coach who’s managed to be successful with it over the past twenty years primarily using a set of principles which allowed a Hall of Famer shooting guard to routinely break the play and go do his own thing. Tough to imagine the Lakers moving away from such a brilliant and flawless system.

The question will be what Brown will opt for. The only concern brought with Brown is his offensive capabilities. His defense is well-tested and approved, the offense has been downright juvenile at times with other adjectives like “predictable” thrown in. Maybe that’s how Brown got Bryant on his side. “We’ll play defense and our offense is ‘Kobe does what he wants.’” That’ll make him friends with the Mamba fast. Not a bad strategy either.

If this was 2008, I mean.