Will we hear the end of this?

Normalcy returns to Lakerdom.

As if.

The Lakers don't do normal and if they ever do, you won't like it. However, a week or two without civil war would be a relief and may not be out of the question.

For all the skepticism surrounding Kobe Bryant, he has been as brilliant as always after calling down the thunder on his own head, averaging a league-leading 30.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and five assists and shooting 50% this season. Of course, by now you could be getting a little tired of the whole subject.

In her book "Ain't No Tomorrow," Elizabeth Kaye wrote: "For readers of the local papers, the Kobe-versus-Shaq struggle was familiar to a point approaching tedium. Since their first season together five years earlier, the Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Heisler had been noting troubles between the players he called 'the Golden Child' and 'Shaq Daddy.' "

That was in 2001 so I'm way past tedium and could be inducing comas. Nevertheless, for anyone who's still with me . . .

Teammates and coaches say Bryant is again acting like one of them. Even if he still wants out -- and he does -- he's being as discreet as only he can be when he feels like it.

As far as the Lakers are concerned, Bryant isn't even the issue. It's kindly paterfamilias Jerry Buss, who's up to here with his rebellious franchise player.

The franchise is at a crossroads. The glory days are gone even if their price scale remains. The way Buss handles this will determine who the Lakers will be and on a scale of 1-10 in degree of difficulty, it's a 10.

To start with, Buss has to handle it as opposed to letting it handle him.

It's one thing to decide to trade Bryant. It's another to give him up for Manny, Mo and Jack because he asks you to.

It's one thing to trade Shaquille O'Neal, knowing Bryant is close to leaving, as Buss did in 2004.

It's another thing to have traded Shaq and Kobe, in both cases before you have to.

Buss' remarks last month in Hawaii weren't the problem. He didn't mean to offend Bryant, who's sensitive for someone who recently went down the front office directory with a blowtorch.

Nor is the problem that Buss didn't try to repair the damage, because he did.

Lakers insiders -- oops, sorry Kobe -- say Buss called Bryant to assure him he hadn't meant to suggest any change in policy, but that Kobe was less than conciliatory.