With his 17th NBA season approaching, Kobe Bryant knows that he's much closer to the end of his career than he is to the beginning.
Though the Los Angeles Lakers added three-time Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard and two-time MVP Steve Nash to their ranks, Bryant is still not ready to give up that No.1 position that he's held for so long with the Lakers.
"I don't want to get into the, 'Well, we share ...' No, it's my team," Bryant told reporters at the Lakers media day Monday. "But I want to make sure that Dwight, when I retire, this is going to be his. I want to teach him everything I possibly know so that when I step away this organization can ride on as if I never left."
According to Bryant, part of his plan to nurture Howard is to prepare the All-Star center to become the face of the Lakers franchise when he retires.
Howard and Bryant were former teammates during the 2008 Olympics, but Howard says that at this point in his career he is looking forward to falling in line behind the leadership of Bryant.
"I'm willing to go through that process, learn from one of the greatest to ever play the game and I think it will be great," Howard said. "I think learning from a guy like Kobe, I know he's going to be tough on me but I expect that and I want him to do that. So, I'll take all the heat that he's going to give me because I know at the end of the day that's going to make me a better player and a better person and it's going to make this team better."
Bryant was also asked if he feels that there would be chemistry issues with the team, in which he disagreed too.
"I don't see it as being an issue at all," Bryant said. "We do different things. I think having Steve helps tremendously. It's a different dynamic than it was with (Shaquille O'Neal). I had to do something that I naturally don't do, which is be a quarterback, make plays for other people and score. The responsibility of him getting the ball fell on me and it was like, this is not what I do. But I figured it out.
"Here, that's Steve. Steve's the quarterback. He has a great system in the Princeton offense to kind of play around with and manipulate. I just slide to my natural spots."
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