NBA training camps opened this week and it’s a sign of weirdness on my part that I have already had an NBA dream. I live in Los Angeles, land of the dysfunctional Lakers. Who says that having a dysfunctional team to root for is a bad thing? I get to process my psyche through their woes.
The specter of Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson together again is bad enough. Jackson wrote a diary of his last season with the Lakers, the 2003-2004 season, called The Last Season: A Team In Search of Its Soul, in which he rips Kobe for being selfishness and uncoachabie. I was also trying to prepare myself for the possibility of having to cheer for a team playing Latrell Sprewell at the guard position. This is a the guy who tried to strangle his coach, P. J. Carlesimo, then sued his agent for signing him to a contract with a morals clause covering such things as, horrors, trying to strangle your coach. Luckily that possibility seems to have passed.
In my dream, Kobe had taken a tab of acid and was sitting on the top of a sixty-foot high cement column. I floated up there at one point to see what it was like. How did I get there? I don’t know. Maybe teleportation or astral travel. The column was swaying back and forth but I’m not sure why because everything was indoors, there was no wind. The motion terrified me so I immediately descended. Kobe has a fondness for living on the edge that I don’t share. After his conflict with teammate Shaquille O’Neal was dissolved because Shaq was traded to Miami, Kobe managed to get into a conflict with Karl Malone over Malone’s flirtacious remarks to his wife, Vanessa Bryant.
Kobe and I were scheduled to be married the next day, wife or not. All of our friends and family wanted us to get married so we decided we would. Everyone was milling around and gathering in corners, sitting on the floor strangely enough, kind of like basketball players who sit at the end of the court instead of on the bench. We were wondering what we should do to help Kobe. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t come down.
We were wondering what we should do to help Kobe. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t come down.
In my dreaming mind I was marrying someone of the same gender. The obvious explanation is that, in the dream, I was actually Phil Jackson. Jackson has re-submitted himself to an uncomfortable marriage with Kobe by signing a new three-year contract to coach the Lakers. In preparation, he has added a sixteen-page addendum to the paperback version of The Last Season that reads as an apology to Kobe. In addition to expressing sympathy for Kobe’s difficult legal trial in Colorado, he was accused of rape but the case was dropped because the accuser refused to testify, Jackson writes that “Kobe will be coachable and I think he’ll do what we have to get done to be competitive this year”.
Eventually, from somewhere, a set of L shaped structures appeared approximating a staircase that allowed Kobe a regal walk from the top of the tower to the ground. When he reached the bottom, I put my arm around him and told him, “It’s alright, we don’t have to marry”. He breathed out a sigh of relief and we walked off to celebrate.
Most Lakers fans were thrilled when Jackson decided to re-sign. Last year’s coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, was a disaster and who else is there? But the message of the dream is that this is a permanently uncomfortable relationship. Kobe, the notorious loner, will come down and join us but not join in. He’s not likely to be the leader of the team with his personal skills but he’s also not likely to let any other player be the leader because he needs to be the star. Jackson will soften his criticism of Kobe but the damage is done.
I know a number of relationships like this and I have even lived through a few myself. I just didn’t expect I’d have to live through one with my local basketball team.