A canine puffball named Gucci is running for her life, hind legs skittering sideway as she circles the kitchen's polished wood floor. Kobe Bryant is hot on her trail and whisper-shouting, "I'm gonna getcha, IIIIIII'm gonna getcha!" If there's anything more unreal than watching the 6'7" Kobe chase this yapping ball of hair like something straight off the Disney Channel, it's having him sit at the kitchen table, holding the Pomeranian in his lap, getting all kissy-face and cooing, "Gucci-gucci-goo!" He maintains that great white sharks are his favorite animal, that the pooch is a Christmas present to his new bride, Vanessa, but none of that is selling right now.

He pauses from getting goopy only to check on NBA.com TV running on the 32-inch or to answer a question. It's the most sickeningly sweet, overdone, G-rated story line ever—a boy and his girl and their dog—and it's quite a departure from Kobe the basketball monk living alone in this canyon-top mansion with his stacks of basketball tapes and his unbridled desire to prove that he's more than some cocky, bilingual high-schooler with Jordanlike mannerisms. In fact, it's a departure nearly as dramatic as the late-season change that took place with Kobe and the Lakers. They were suddenly one big, happy family too.

Coincidence?

Hardly.

Timely?

Absolutely.

***

The healing powers of a 19-game winning streak, which served as a compress on an otherwise gaping wound of a season, were finally tested in the Finals by the Sixers, whose bonding process around their own young, overly cocksure star began in training camp. The Sixers' savvy vets closed ranks and marched out of the Staples Center with an overtime upset in Game 1. Allen Iverson led the way, of course, with another refuse-to-lose performance that validated his ability to deliver in the clutch the same way Kobe did last season, slowing—if not calling into question—Kobe's ascension as the game's most compelling player. It also put the Lakers behind in a series for the first time in two years, poking a finger at their aura of invincibility.

The ultimate dividend: Instead of ongoing Kobe-Shaq battles, there's now the anticipation of future Kobe-Allen clashes for ultimate bragging rights every summer. The rivalry is made more intriguing because of the contrast in styles. A year ago Kobe might have tried to match Iverson's 48-point Game 1 performance. The current Kobe is happy to orchestrate the Lakers' 98-89 Game 2 win with 31 points, eight rebounds and six assists, or to calmly pass out of the double-team to help set up Robert Horry's key three in the final moments of their frantic Game 3 win.

Now it's Cool Head vs. Hot Hand, the essence of their battle emerging in the final minutes of Game 2. AI, nodding vigorously and clapping his hands, promised the Lakers that they could count on the battle continuing in Philly. Kobe's quiet-but-firm response: "We don't care. We're going to come to play too."

Take note of the inclusive pronoun. Throughout the playoffs, Kobe has used it to answer every ques tion, even those about his own performance. But then the fissures that threatened to shatter L.A.'s run at a second consecutive championship were never simply the highly publicized cross pur poses between Kobe and Shaq. Same with the current blessed union of souls—it wasn't just a matter of Kobe getting a life and a love beyond hoops.

Marriage certainly played a part. Waiting to get married for almost a year after announcing his intentions did too. So did struggling, for the first time, to play with an injury. And traveling with the team but not playing. Having a mentor like Jerry West in his ear didn't hurt. Some believe that no longer having his father, former Sixer Joe "Jelly Bean" Bryant, in his ear helped too. Even coach Phil Jackson questioning his integrity ultimately served a purpose.

"It was a combination of all that stuff," Kobe says. "All those factors have helped me mature. It wasn't one individual, it wasn't one instance."

However many influences there were, they drastically alter the chances of Kobe bolting L.A. next summer through an escape clause in his current six-year, $71 million deal. There's no question he'll opt out—"It only makes sense," he says—and that's sure to create a few breathless weeks in L.A. Rumors about him going elsewhere are sure to crop up, just as they did when Shaq exercised a similar option before re-signing last summer.

The difference: Some Lakers and a significant faction of fans not too long ago thought L.A. would be better off without Kobe, or at least better with AI or Vince Carter or in his place. Such talk offended and hurt Kobe nearly as much as a comment from Jackson, who, hoping to shame Kobe into trusting his teammates, told reporters he'd heard a rumor that his young star had sabotaged high school games just to play hero at the end. Most players and teams never repair their relationships after such innuendo, but as Kobe has proved more than once, he is not most players. If there is anyone like him on the planet, it's former Lakers star and GM West, who had an equally supreme confidence and played with an equally larger-than-life center, Wilt Chamberlain. And Kobe knows that Jerry knows. "He's always just a phone call away," Kobe says. "He's had an influence on me from Day One. Every time I talk to Jerry, I learn something new."

Kobe isn't likely to have dinner with Shaq or Phil, as he recently did with West, but he insists he hasn't let past conflicts with his center or his coach affect him on the floor. Want proof? Watch the way he now looks for Shaq and urges his teammates in huddles to do the same. Recall how he listened and nodded after Jackson chided him for taking a pull-up three on the break late in Game 2. "It's very easy to separate my emotions from my decisionmaking," Kobe says.

Shaq and Phil didn't publicly endorse the idea of Kobe going elsewhere, but they certainly didn't discourage such speculation. You can bet they would now. Both have gone out of their way to compliment him—Phil crowning Kobe not merely Jordan's successor but his superior, and Shaq now calling him the game's best player.

The feel-good vibe has spread throughout the organization. Assistant coach Tex Winter, who was seriously considering retirement, now says he'd like to stick around another year. Ron Harper and Horace Grant, both of whom talked of retiring or moving on after this season, are now entertaining the idea of yet another go-round. "Before guys didn't want to leave because it was L.A. or the Lakers," says guard Derek Fisher. "Now it's because they don't want to leave each other."

If there was a turning point to it all, level the big red arrow at an otherwise inconspicuous card game on the team plane during a four-game swing in April. No one's exactly sure if it took place on the way to Utah or Chicago or Boston or Minnesota, but somewhere along the way, the wall between Kobe and his teammates that had stood firm through four seasons finally fell.

Neither Shaq nor Kobe was actually taking part in the two standard games, In Between and Guts. But Kobe was in his usual spot, the seat across from the card-playing table, close enough to hear and see but not actually take part, preferring instead to sit with his eyes closed or to watch a movie on his DVD. That sort of thing was fine with his original Lakers teammates, who resented his swagger and didn't yet appreciate the then-18-year-old's talent. Fisher says the Lakers didn't rag on Kobe as much as they simply ignored him. "I can't say that guys set out to make him feel not welcome," Fisher says. "But I could definitely feel a difference between then and now. It's not always what you're doing. Sometimes it's what you're not doing."

Brian Shaw, who played with Jelly Bean in the Italian League and saw Kobe grow up, would always invite him into the card game, saying, "Hey, your money's good at this table." Most of the time Kobe would smile, adjust his headphones and go back to his movie. Sometimes, though, he'd whisper a wisecrack in Shaw's ear, still not feeling accepted enough to join the banter directly.

"I used to crack jokes, but I'd do it sneaky," Kobe says. "I'd slide them in. I'd whisper in BShaw's ear something about Horace. I'd sneak 'em like that. Then after a while they started catching on to me. Brian would say, 'Oh, you better watch out for Kobe.' Shaq once said, 'Kobe is like a black cat, sitting there chillin', then you try to walk by and the cat goes, Hissssss! Scccchhhrrrrawwwrr!'"

Being injured and traveling with your team is like being the lone stranger in a crowded room—the proximity actually heightens the feeling of separation. And maybe that's what Kobe felt. But for some reason, when this four-game swing began, he didn't fire up the DVD and he didn't pretend to sleep. He watched the cards being shuffled and dealt, saw the bets being placed and lost, and laughed along at the trash-talk in between. To the casual observer, it might have meant nothing at all. To his teammates, it meant everything.

"We have a saying: 'If you grin, you're in,'" says Shaw. "It means if you smile at someone else's joke, you're open to getting cracked on yourself. Everybody had been waiting to accept him, to joke around with him. That's where it started."

Kobe grinned and, at long last, he was in.

***

He needed some sort of sanctuary, since the team friction was only part of the high drama Kobe lived with for much of the last year. The off-court soap opera stemmed primarily from his plan to marry Vanessa Laine, who was only 18 when he met her while shooting a music video. To his critics, the romance and marriage plans became another example of Kobe's impetuousness. Jackson came up behind him one day and said, "I hear you're getting married and you're still wet behind the ears," pretending to find proof with his finger.

But it would get much worse. Rumors both silly and vicious emerged after his sudden wedding announcement and during the yearlong delay before the knot was officially tied on April 18. One was that Vanessa's parents were threatening to sue if Kobe didn't marry her. There were whispers that Vanessa was white and only masquerading as a woman of color, as if that somehow mattered.

But whatever outside turmoil the relationship created, it also taught Kobe the power of two (or more) standing as one. His teammates are also convinced that protecting Vanessa from prying eyes forced him, for the first time, to think of someone else's welfare and something other than basketball. A year earlier, Kobe would've stayed home to watch Game 7 of the Eastern finals so he could begin plotting his strategy for the winner. This year, he skipped the Bucks-Sixers clincher and took Vanessa to a movie. "The commitment and responsibility to a partner and developing the ability to think of someone else has opened him up," says forward Rick Fox.

The foraging for any tidbit about their relationship has been so intense that they are devoutly committed to keeping Vanessa out of his spotlight. One reason for the wedding's delay, Kobe says, was the need for elaborate planning to avoid anyone but the dozen invited guests from knowing about it. He rejected a request to include Vanessa in The Magazine's cover shoot, and she remained upstairs and out of sight during an hourlong interview at his house.

"I don't want people to feel like they can just invade my space," Kobe says. "We found you can't say anything. There was a lot I had to deal with on that front, but as far as the relationship itself, all that only made our love for one another stronger. The marriage definitely helped me out."

Kobe won't discuss reports that his parents disapproved of the marriage, and that there is now a rift. But some ex-teammates of Jelly Bean believe that a little less of his influence wouldn't be bad for Kobe's team 'tude. Jelly Bean, who couldn't be reached for comment, had a rep during his eight-season NBA career for having a higher opinion of his offensive talent than his coaches did. Early on, Jelly Bean instructed Kobe that he'd best look out for himself and not trust his teammates to do so.

Kobe lived alone back then, with a personal chef (since fired) his only visitor most days. "Mostly," Fisher says, "he sought his own advice." He even ignored his financial advisers when they tried to discourage him from building a full-size subterranean gym on the hillside below his house. But after breaking ground, he finally relented.

"Financially, it just wasn't responsible," he says, referring to the proposed $7 million undertaking. "People go through experiences. People grow."

***

Even now, the Lakers talk with wonder about Kobe's social transformation. "Before he'd come into the locker room and say, 'What's up?' and keep going," says forward Robert Horry. "Now he stops and actually has a full conversation with some guys." Rookie Mike Penberthy has noticed a difference too. "I could go into the locker room right now and tease him as much as I wanted, and he'd tease me right back," he says.

Kobe practices differently too. Jordan was legendary for being more ruthless playing against teammates than opponents, and Kobe, having made a close study of everything MJ, developed the same cutthroat approach. But the benefits of being more personable with the Lakers off the court convinced him to lighten up on it.

"You teased me on the court, you were going to get your ass whupped," Kobe says. "So it was a matter of me saying, 'Maybe they don't need me to go hard and be on these guys all the time. Maybe if I laugh once in a while, it might be good for our team psyche.' It's something I tried out, and it seems to be working pretty well for us."

The ultimate proof occurred just before the media came into L.A.'s practice facility two days before the Finals began. An intrasquad scrimmage deteriorated into a highlight-reel competition; Kobe drove on Shaq, turned his back to draw contact and flipped the ball over his shoulder into the basket, just over Shaq's outstretched arm. To get even, the Daddy dunked on Kobe at the other end. Kobe laughed. "Before, you wouldn't have seen that," says Penberthy. "Ever. Ever. Ever."

***

The end of their squabble is a relief to all the Lakers, who were helpless to resolve the rift but affected mightily every time one sniped at the other. Shaq and Kobe will remain the oddest of couples, and socially they still go their separate ways, but the hoops part of the relationship is rock solid because they finally understand their value to each other. "They may not like each other," says a league exec, "but now they respect each other."

Winning a championship last season didn't forge that respect; the weight of playing while at odds with each other did. Earlier this season, Shaq accused Kobe of being selfish. Kobe accused Shaq of being indifferent about winning another ring. Now, Shaq offers an olive branch by calling him "the best player on the planet." Says Shaq: "Throughout the playoffs he's just been playing so easy and cool, it was time to hand him that."

Kobe, in turn, recognizes the work that Shaq did to get in shape after a slow start. "He wants to win more than anyone realizes," Kobe says. "I've learned that, and my respect for him has grown. With everything we went through, we came out not only better basketball players, but better people."

It still took a series of twists to get there. The first was a strained right arch that forced Shaq to miss six games right before the All-Star break. Kobe relished the chance to prove he could lead without Shaq, averaging 34.3 points and 8.8 rebounds. More important, he got his teammates involved early and often, and L.A. went 4-2.

Far too much had been said and done for that to be enough. Shaq, as sensitive as he is big, was still hurt about speculation that one championship ring had sated him. The Lakers talked of putting their differences aside by the mid-February break, but there was Shaq at the All-Star Game in D.C., asking to have his locker moved away from Kobe's and fueling rumors that he'd rather play with Suns point guard Jason Kidd. Ten days later, it was Shaq's turn to show how a star plays team-first ball when Kobe missed three games with a sprained right ankle. Shaq had a season-best stretch of assists—7, 8, 6—as the Lakers went 3-0.

Point made. But where Kobe really learned to appreciate his teammates was when he tried to play while still hampered by the sore ankle for the next six games. The injury forced him to play conservatively, to pick his spots and save his energy for defense. "I had to do all this therapy just to get out on the court," he says. "I told them one morning at shootaround, 'I respect what y'all do so much more.'

"BShaw said he once made fun of the old guys too. He'd tease me, saying, 'It's happening to you now.' I said it's just an injury. He said, 'Yeah, that's how it starts. Then you get older and you get injured, and it just doesn't get better.'"

Everyone knew about the ankle sprain, but Kobe was also playing with a sore shoulder, elbow and hip. Suddenly, he viewed the way Jackson and Harper hobbled around as a reflection of their dedication to the game, not their unsuitability for it. For the first time, the 22-year-old Bryant couldn't run or shoot or defend effortlessly. He couldn't simply rise up over defenders, or hang in the air longer to get off his shot. He had to rely on picks and passes. He had to be more careful. Now, there was no question that he needed his teammates. And another small but important chunk of the wall had crumbled.

"The injuries prevented him—for the first time—from feeling invincible," Fisher says. "It humbled him to a point he'd never been before. And that relaxed him enough to say, 'I'm part of these guys.'"

The ankle eventually got better, but then a viral infection struck, forcing him to miss two more games. That forced him to sit at home and watch Fisher make his season debut after recovering from a fractured right foot and pile up 26 points and eight assists in 37 minutes. As Kobe shivered in his bed with a sore throat, aching all over and barely able to move, he found himself pumping his fist as Fisher played with a ferocity Kobe himself had not had for some time. And he saw how that galvanized the rest of the team. "My respect for him," Kobe says, "went through the roof."

In the five-game stretch following his return, Kobe shot less (20, down from 23 attempts a game) and passed more (6.2 assists, up from 4.8). Now, when the coaches would point out in film sessions an open teammate he had ignored, Kobe no longer sat silent and stone-faced. Instead, he'd tell the overlooked teammate, "My bad. I'll get it to you next time."

When a sore left foot sidelined Kobe once again, Shaq and the rest of the Lakers kind of, well, missed him. Besides, the playoffs were right around the corner, and they had not forgotten his string of clutch performances in last season's title run. He returned right after that all-important card-game-razzing four-game trip. The layoff allowed the pain from all the other nagging injuries to subside, but this time Kobe didn't try to take over the steering wheel. He was content to simply help work the stick shift. The Lakers blew out the Suns by 26 in his first game back, with Kobe equaling a career high with six steals. His entire focus was on defending Kidd—the same Kidd whom Shaq a few months earlier would've happily taken in exchange for Kobe.

The Lakers figured the final test would be an April 15 NBC-televised home game and playoff tune-up against the Blazers. If Kobe was going to revert to center-stage form, it would be here. Any concerns were erased in the opening minutes as he swung the ball or dumped it into Shaq without even looking at the rim. Shaq was equally magnanimous, giving Kobe the ball and encouraging him to shoot. They wound up with matching 21-shot salutes. Kobe also handed out a team-high seven assists in the 105-100 win. "It feels like it's supposed to feel," Shaw said.

***

Don't think that Kobe is ready for the meerschaum pipe and slippers in front of the fire quite yet. The predator in him is still very much alive. As he prepared for Game 4 against the Kings, he mouthed, "It's over," and then closed out the series with a 48-point, 16-rebound performance. Sensing that a strike to the jugular in Game 1 of the Western finals could take the heart out of the Spurs, he wielded a 45-point, 10-rebound stiletto. After driving around and dunking on San Antonio's vaunted Twin Towers, David Robinson and Tim Duncan, that first night, he backed off and let his teammates finish the Spurs off, averaging eight assists over the final three games. In Game 3 against the Sixers, he scored 32 points and, with Shaq having fouled out, slid over to alter AI's driving attempt to tie the game in the final minute.

The Lakers' card players best beware too—he's not merely cracking jokes. He plans to put his money on the table just soon as he feels he's watched them all enough to know who plays conservatively and who plays fast and loose. "Once I understand what those guys like to do," he says, "I'll get into the game and take all their money."

***

Simply following him home can turn into a gut check. It begins with blowing through a red light directly outside the Staples Center and a dicey freeway slalom through traffic. He slips through just enough gaps to test your driving skills and high-speed courage before settling into cruise control. Then, just when you reach the gently winding roads that lead up through L.A.'s Temescal Canyon and think the chase is over, his brand-new S600 Mercedes sedan leaves a vapor trail. The pedal of your rented Buick LeSabre is floored, but it's still not enough to keep up. Only a stoplight saves you. When you reach the house in a cloud of dust, he pretends nothing happened.

He later reveals the genesis of this new approach. "If a seal wants to, it can keep away from a great white all day," says Kobe, indicating that he switches over from hoops to the Discovery Channel now and then. "But if the seal doesn't see it coming, the shark can come up from below and take that seal right out of the water. The seal is done and doesn't even know what hit it."

With that, he goes back to letting the unsuspecting Gucci lick his chin.

This article appears in the June 25, 2001 issue of ESPN The Magazine.