Isaac Avilucea

Jackson and Bryant were like two rival siblings. Yet, they had mirror-image personalities.

Though they quarrelled like two estranged lovers in a soap-opera, Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant’s NBA marriage could’ve been salvaged without intervention from Dr. Phil. 

Jackson could’ve solved the derision between he and Bryant himself.

But both were prouder than lions.

Now they had come to their senses, and they were ready to reunite.

Jackson’s decision to return to the Lakers was a shrewd maneuver. Varnishing his legacy and disproving the naysayers were only two of the many reasons Jackson opted for a return with the Lakers. 

The question that would remain, however, was if the Lakers could ascend the mountain again with Jackson navigating LA. Had Jackson, by publishing those acidic memoirs disparaging Bryant’s supposedly poisonous character, done irreperable damage to the two’s relationship?

After all, this was the same Bryant that, when asked about the notion of Jackson leaving the organization after the 2003-04 season, remarked, “I don’t care.”

If people were still wondering how this experiment would fare, all the doubting was answered when, in his first year back, Jackson led the Lakers back to the playoffs with Kobe as their captain.

Two years removed, Lakerland was detoxified of all previously held animosities between coach and player. How could this be?

Some oversimplified the circumstances, claiming that this was simply an earnest willingness on the part of Jackson and Byrant to compromise and co-exist. Yet, it seemed more complex, rather, like an ephiphany for both parties — the realization that Jackson and Bryant were strikingly similar. In a sense, Phil had clashed with himself.

Perhaps, too, Jackson felt responsible for the 2003-04 implosion and was looking to make ammends for allowing things to wind aimlessly abound.

While Kobe jetted back and forth during from the Lakers to attend hearing in his rape trial,  Jackson and Lakers’ managment were relatively accomodating. But the public feuding between Shaq and Kobe — likely a result of Bryant’s panicked tattling, where No. 8 alleged the Big Aristotle paid women exorbirant amounts of money to keep quiet his adulterous flings — served as another distraction. And with a starting five comprised of two one-year-paid traveling peddlers invested only in  cherry-picking a championship, the Lakers were defunct of leadership. Yet, Jackson didn’t intercede.

He allowed Shaq to blot over Bryant’s character like a Bingo card. Isolated, Bryant likely craved to be embraced by his team. But parched of support, Bryant turned into a one-on-one machine.

It was a natural coping mechanism. As humans, the logic is, “If you’re not with me, you’re against me.” Thus had to be Kobe’s thinking.

Jackson, at one point during his career with the Knicks, experienced the same type of detachment, which is detailed in his book, Mindgames: Phil Jackson’s Long Strange Journey.

After making significant contributions during New York’s 1972-73 championship, Jackson was shelved “on the eve of the championship” by injury. But “… More than anything, the fiercely independent, individualistic Jackson seemed to crave being a part of the group, just one of the many ironies of his curious makeup.”

Suffice it to say, Jackson had to have known how Bryant felt. He knew why Bryant acted the way he did. 

Despit Bryant’s stubborness and Jackson’s disdain for Kobe’s prior trangressions, the Lakers were able to coast on talent alone and reach the championship, if only because Derek Fisher’s .04-second miracle crushed a San Antonio team that seemed destined to repeat as champions.

But inevitably, LA was pushed aside in five games by scraggly scrubs and The Mask, all because Detroit did one thing better than the Lakers: Play fluidly as a unit.

The Lakers were mortal. But even after experiencing something so humbling, neither Jackson or Bryant could put aside their enormous egos.

Through seperation, they’d realize how immaterial their differences — and how strangely symmetrical their personalities were. Through personal reflection, each would come to see the man in the mirror. But first each had to wipe away the fog.