[...]
Kobe agrees and extends that concept to his relationship with all his teammates. "We may not be close off the court, but I've got their back on the court no matter what," he says. Before the playoffs began, the Lakers held a team meeting to try to ease tensions and get the other players to give Bryant more support. "We look at all the attention and hype he gets and think he shouldn't be making all those mistakes," said Laker forward Rick Fox. "But we forget he's just a kid. We just sort of left him hanging this season, an island by himself, and that's going to stop. He wants to win as much as anyone else, and he deserves our support."
[...]
Kobe says he's a loner by nature. At the Forum he dresses separately in a back room; on the road, he sticks to his hotel room, filling his day with repeat breakfasts--eggs, potatoes and pancakes morning, noon and night--and pay-per-view movies. Bryant is also something of a misfit among the young black men who populate the NBA, the result, he says, of having been raised first in Italy and then in an affluent white suburb.
