Kobe arrives, but he's always been here

Remember Shaq and Kobe?

Now it's Kobe and Shaq.

Actually, they're tied with four NBA titles apiece, but there's no doubt whose time this is . . . finally . . . with Kobe Bryant, who's 30 to Shaquille O'Neal's 37, on a young powerhouse, as opposed to being shopped around the league.

The Lakers won more than a title Sunday, which ranked with such watershed moments as the first one they won in Los Angeles in 1972; their first with Magic Johnson in 1980; and their first over the Boston Celtics in 1985.

This marks their return from a post-Shaq fall, and raises Phil Jackson above all coaches. Of course, it was only seven seasons between titles, however agonizing, and Jackson wasn't worried abut his standing among coaches.

Above all, it marks the arrival of Bryant as a universally acknowledged all-time great, conferring a legitimacy that was withheld all his career.

Nakedly ambitious, oblivious to others' sensibilities, learning every lesson the hardest possible way, Bryant was, until recently, the most scorned NBA superstar since Wilt Chamberlain -- in a much harder era to be scorned.

Now it's as if Kobe just went from zero titles to four -- this one and the three he got with Shaq, which nobody mentioned before.

Making it as official as it gets, Hannah Storm of ESPN's "SportsCenter" announced Monday: "Kobe Bryant can now be placed on the list of the greatest players of all time."

So, exactly where was he before Sunday?

Here's a news flash: Bryant has been this good for a long time.

He had this determination everyone is oohing and ahhing about as a rookie.

As far as making teammates better, he got over that hump while Shaq was still here, averaging a then-career-high 5.9 assists in 2002-03.

Winning was always everything and second place the same as last, but it's especially true on the level Bryant functions on, the quest to be the best ever.

Now, incredibly, after all he has been through, someone just lowered a stairway from heaven.

The Lakers won this title with little from Andrew Bynum. If he goes back to being a force, they move up another level, where there are no other teams.

Kobe and Shaq -- then Shaq and Kobe -- had a budding dynasty, but the operative word turned out to be budding, not dynasty.

In eight seasons, with what Boston General Manager Danny Ainge called the modern Wilt Chamberlain playing with the modern Michael Jordan, they won three titles.