Kobe Bryant will win more NBA championships without Shaquille O'Neal than O'Neal will win without Bryant.

Who had such a notion in mind July 14, 2004, when the Heat acquired Shaq from the Los Angeles Lakers? Be honest.

Yes, O'Neal and Miami won the title in 2006, so Shaq has that 1-0 lead on Bryant since their Los Angeles divorce after winning three trophies together.

But it would be a surprise, beginning now, if O'Neal, who has moved on to Phoenix, ever wins another.

Bryant? The guy the Lakers kept when it came to a Kobe-or-Shaq decision? Bryant might win one as soon as next month. His L.A. squad - also headlining 27-year-old Pau Gasol, 28-year-old Lamar Odom and, soon enough, 20-year-old Andrew Bynum - looks young and spirited and, oh, so formidable.

Bryant, 29, is this year's Most Valuable Player and generally regarded as the league's best one as well. (Please, no more comparing Dwyane Wade to him.) But perhaps the most noteworthy praise of Bryant this season has been his selflessness. Bryant, in fact, has become the kind of inspiring teammate that O'Neal, among others, preached he never could or would be.

But a columnist for the Los Angeles Times noted that Odom refers to Bryant as Kobe-Wa Kenobi "because he just sees and understands things."

That would be the same Odom who was part of the package Miami sent to the Lakers in the O'Neal deal. At the time, the Heat was willing to accept the monumental pressure accompanying the acquisition of O'Neal in the belief he would pair with Wade in delivering multiple titles. It was O'Neal, in fact, who once guessed he would match in Miami the three he won in L.A., which obviously isn't how it worked out.

O'Neal is an aged 36 who looks old enough to retire to the Arizona desert. He was selfish and petulant by the end of his Miami stay, and his familiar egotistical behavior casts him in particularly harsh light when measured against Bryant's emerging basketball sophistication.

O'Neal played reasonably well for the Suns after pouting his way out of Miami, but hardly was he good enough in any regard during San Antonio's dismissal of Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs.

It's a good thing Miami managed to pick off the '06 championship, because the trade for O'Neal otherwise would look like an unmitigated disaster right about now. Pat Riley, in his role as president, mortgaged a good portion of the Heat's future (Odom, Caron Butler and a first-round draft choice, most notably) to get O'Neal, and has seen the team dissolve into a mess since its title run.

But don't the Lakers look swell?

Bryant figures to be the linchpin of the franchise for several seasons. It took him some time to become acclimated to life outside O'Neal's cold shadow, but Bryant now appears invigorated in the prime of his playing career.

The hope for a prolonged period of excellence seems a lot more realistic in Los Angeles these days than it does in Miami or, for that matter, Phoenix, which can't be interpreted as anything other than a direct reflection on O'Neal.

After they collaborated in Los Angeles to win those three championships, the central element of the Bryant-O'Neal feud centered on which player would win more titles without the other. The assumption was that O'Neal would strike first in Miami, which he did, but any flame of residual promise has been extinguished. It's possible the best thing O'Neal did for the Heat otherwise was bring Shawn Marion in trade from Phoenix, but even that will require further study.

If, however, it once was guessed Bryant never would win a ring without O'Neal as a teammate, it has become a foolish idea. Bryant might very soon square the score with O'Neal and then really take off.

Bryant, quite simply, has grown into a player in full.

It was the late author Frank Yerby who described maturity as "the day you don't need to be lied to about anything."

O'Neal still needs to hear the fibs; Bryant doesn't.

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