Who will change, Shaq or Kobe? The Mag's Ric Bucher has an answer.

Some heat wave in L.A. last week, huh?

I never expected my story about the Kobe-Shaq (or Shaq-Kobe, to keep everything even) relationship to create such a furor. After all, as former Laker Eddie Jones has since noted, it's not as if the problem hadn't been noticeable before. That elephant has been sitting in the middle of the Lakers' lockerroom waving its big trunk and passing mighty pachyderm gas for a couple of years now. All I did was describe what it looked, acted and, uh, smelled like.

One clarification: The Lakers aren't 25-12 simply because Shaq and Kobe aren't getting along. A bigger reason is the Western Conference is infinitely better and the Lakers aren't. Buoyed by the arrival of Phil Jackson, the Lakers played last season with a zeal only Kobe has maintained. Self-satisfaction has crept into certain corners when they actually need to be playing harder because their defending-champion status has inspired teams to get geeked up for them in a way they didn't before.

If there's anything else that blew me away, it's how riled our NBA readers can get. The Association may be having its problems filling seats, but the passion for the game and how it should be played clearly still runs deep among its fans. I received well over 100 e-mails -- some of them nearly as long as my story -- detailing why either Kobe or Shaq needed to change his 'tude. Or how one or the other needed to change their games. Or how both needed to pay heed to Phil. Only one or two correspondents suggested the problem wouldn't exist if I had never written about it and suggested I pursue other employment. (The ol' head-in-the-sand faction.)

One reader actually offered a chart showing the point production from the two is the same no matter how the number of shots between them are split. Another pointed out that if their free-throw percentages were reversed, so would their scoring averages. Some asked questions: Will the Lakers trade one of them? (Only if Shaq demands to be moved. Kobe won't because he understands the stars of the highest pantheon played their entire career with one team.) What if the Lakers had to choose between them? (That would depend, of course, on the comparative value of what they were offered for each of them. If Jerry West were still the GM, he'd keep Kobe -- and Shaq

knows it.) How would Jordan have reacted at 22 if he were in Kobe's place? (He would've fought Shaq for preeminence, but having been reined in by Dean Smith's system, he would've found subtler ways to do it.)

And, finally, will Shaq and Kobe find peace and harmony? Yes -- and despite what Kobe and his teammates said in my story, I believe he'll be the one to adjust. What convinces me is something he said when we talked late last week. He shared my surprise at how the story went nuclear, but then he said the ruckus will force all concerned to come together. "Best thing that could've happened," he said. Of all that he's done by the age of 22, having that kind of vision might be Kobe's most impressive quality of all.

Ric Bucher is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com.