Privately, people wonder: How many more passes does Kobe Bryant (notes) give Pau Gasol (notes) for speaking so boldly about him? How long until Bryant’s public and private reprisal comes with a ferocity that could bring a 7-footer to his knees? All season, Gasol has been a relentlessly consistent, if not passively aggressive, critic of the franchise star’s shooting habits, of an offense that doesn’t deliver him the ball with the frequency that he wants.
Whatever the reasons, Gasol has been emboldened to speak his mind. Whatever the odds, Bryant has bit his lip and let it go.
无论是什么原因，加索尔已经大胆的表达了他的想法；无论什么流言，布莱恩特都没有说什么，就这么算了。
“I believe in what I believe,” Gasol said.
“我坚信我所相信的，”加索尔说到。
Hours before Friday night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns, chatting on a chair inside U.S. Airways Center, Bryant let out a laugh and insisted there will be no public rebuttals. “I’m not touching that,” Bryant said with a smile and shrug.
在周五战胜菲尼克斯太阳比赛的前几个小时，在美航中心和布莱恩特聊天的时候，布莱恩特大笑着，并且坚持不会对媒体有什么争辩，“我不会那么做的，”布莱恩特笑着耸耸肩说到。
Bryant could come out and say that Gasol had never won a playoff game until arriving to the Lakers. He could tell Gasol that the Lakers still had the NBA’s best record without him for a month to start the season. He could tell him to make a free throw in the last minutes of tough games, tell him to toughen up.
布莱恩特可以站出来，说加索尔在到湖人之前没有赢过一场季后赛的比赛，他可以告诉加索尔湖人在开赛的第一个赛季尽管没有他一样拥有NBA最好的战绩，他可以告诉他在比赛最后时刻比分胶着时如何将罚球罚进去，他可以告诉他应该如何强硬。
Truth be told, Kobe Bryant could tell Pau Gasol to simply shut the bleep up.
告诉他这些事实，科比-布莱恩特可以很轻松的让加索尔闭嘴。
Only, Bryant doesn’t do it. Tempted? Well, of course. Yet, the reason for such restraint is simple: The Lakers desperately need Gasol, and a public chastising of him would almost assuredly reduce his fragile psyche to rubble, costing Bryant the player he needs to catch Michael Jordan and his six championship rings.
但是，布莱恩特没有这么做，为什么？当然了这原因很简单：湖人现在还是很需要加索尔，而且公开的谈论这些只会伤害他那脆弱的心灵，而布莱恩特也需要帮手来达到迈克尔-乔丹的高度以及他那6个总冠军戒指。
Bryant responds with polite, processed reason: He isn’t playing differently this season, he insists.
Perhaps circumstances have changed, but not him.
布莱恩特很有礼貌的，很小心的回应着，几乎都是程序式的原因：他坚持本赛季他的打法有什么变化，也许是球队环境变了，但不是他变了。
“Last year during our stretch run, Andrew [Bynum] wasn’t there ‘cause of injury, so Pau got a lot more touches,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports. “And this year, we’ve got to kind of split the difference between those two. Now, any of those guys can have a big night. Andrew had one the other night. Lamar [Odom] can have a big night. And Pau can have a big night.
“上赛季有一段时间，安猪-拜纳姆因为受伤无法上场比赛，所以保罗得到了更多的接球机会，”布莱恩特说到，“而本赛季有一些不同，他们每个家伙都可以有一个非常棒的夜晚，安猪可以打出一场经典的比赛，拉马尔也可以，保罗也可以。”
“Some nights you get a lot of touches, some nights you don’t.”
“一些晚上你可以得到很多机会，而一些晚上你可能就没多少机会。”
Such patience out of Bryant, such perspective. Years ago, this wouldn’t have happened. He would have blasted Gasol into oblivion. No more. Everyone has watched and listened to Gasol take these little shots along the way, beginning with Bryant’s pursuit of Jerry West’s Lakers scoring record and continuing several times over.
这是来自布莱恩特的耐心，如此客观的观点，而几年前这肯定不会发生。他可能直接就将加索尔打入冷宫，而这些现在绝对不会再有了，在布莱恩特超过了杰里-韦斯特成为湖人历史上的得分王之后，加索尔对接触球机会少就开始抱怨了，而且抱怨了好几次。
Nevertheless, Bryant has been nurturing, not narcissistic. So when there was a game on the line Friday night, Kobe had the capital to slap Gasol upside the head in the fourth quarter, a kind of nurturing, go-get-‘em moment that preceded an improbable stand by the Lakers frontline.
但无论如何，布莱恩特现在变得成熟了，他不是那么的孤芳自赏。所以当周五比赛到关键时刻，科比在第四节和加索尔俩人头靠着头商量着比赛的战术，这或许是一种信息的传递，湖人的前锋是不会被放在一边不管不顾的。
Moments later, Gasol would flex those skinny arms and crush Phoenix’s Louis Amundson(notes) upside the head on a drive to the rim. The foul sent Suns coach Alvin Gentry into a rage, costing him two technical fouls, an ejection and perhaps ultimately a 102-96 loss.
不下一小会儿，加索尔用他那小细胳膊对太阳的阿蒙德森来了一次犯规，这个犯规直接将太阳的主教练金特里累计两次技术犯规送到了更衣室，而湖人也以102-96击败了对手。
“Pau gave a hard foul, which is what we like to see from him,” Bryant said.
“保罗给了一次动作非常大的犯规，而这就是我们希望从他身上看到的。”布莱恩特说到。
These are the small victories which assemble one on top of another: A hard foul here, clutch basket there. This is the reason the Bryant dictatorship has allowed such dissident talk out of Gasol. Maybe it emboldens Gasol. Maybe it leaves Gasol thinking that’s he standing up to Bryant, standing tough. This week started with Gasol reiterating his issues with Bryant shooting too much and ended with a savvy 21 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists from Bryant.
Four straight road losses had everyone doubting the Lakers’ resolve, and with Bryant’s mangled finger reaggravated, with that bum ankle acting up, he’s never needed so much out of his teammates. So, whatever momentary satisfaction might come out of a public obliteration from Gasol’s emboldened mouth, the harshest consequences would ultimately be meted out to Bryant. This has been the evolution of Kobe. All those years of raging against the machine, of a genius talent forever trying to control the inner rage that ruled him, Kobe discovered the proper way to harness it.
客场四连败让所有人都怀疑湖人赢球的决心，布莱恩特那已经错位了的手指和他那还没好利索的脚踝伤势，他从来没有如此的需要队友的帮助，所以，无论每个夜晚媒体会产生什么对他不利的言论，以及来自加索尔的抱怨，最终布莱恩特一定会用场上的表现来予以还击，这就是科比的成熟。这么些年来，布莱恩特，这位天才级的球员，一直都在试图控制它内线的愤怒，直到现在，科比发现了正确的方法。
“I’ve definitely seen the growth,” Derek Fisher(notes) said. “We’ve talked about it. It’s something that he’s very conscious of. He lives, breathes, digests every aspect of his game, our team’s game and what’s necessary to win. He’s very aware of what needs to happen on and off the court for us to be successful.”
“我已经看到了他的成长，”德里克-费舍尔说到，“我们已经讨论过这个了，他现在已经认识到了这一点，他生活着，呼吸着，观察着他的比赛场上，我们的比赛场上的每一个形式每一个变化，来帮助我们赢球，他非常注意在场上场下我们赢球所需要的东西，是否发生了。”
Where did Bryant change in that way? Well, it had to be Shaquille O’Neal’s(notes) derisive rap and Bryant’s ultimate reaction: silence. At the Beijing Olympics, on the eve of his 30th birthday, Bryant told me that his big mistake earlier in his career was always coming up with a rebuttal for Shaq. “My philosophy had always been to keep quiet and not to say anything,” he said. “And by me responding, that drew me into it. If I had to do it over again, I would’ve just let people talk and say what they had to say, and as time goes, they would’ve seen what was what.
到底是什么导致了布莱恩特会发生了这么大的变化呢？当然了，是从沙克-奥尼尔的那个rap开始的，布莱恩特最有利的回击就是：沉默。在北京奥运会的时候，在他30岁生日的前一天，布莱恩特告诉了我在他职业生涯的早期犯了一个非常大的错误，那就是当沙克说了什么之后他立马就跳出来进行辩驳，“我的人生哲学就是保持沉默，什么都不要去说，”他说道，“什么都不要去响应，因为这会让我深陷进去的，如果我有机会再次让我选择怎么做的话，我会让人们去讨论，去说他们想说的，随着时间的推移，他们会看到事实的真相。”
“When you’re young, [you think], ‘Enough is enough. I’m going to say something.’ And all of a sudden …”
“当你年轻的时候，（你会想），‘够了够了，我受不了了，我应该去说点什么了’，然后，突然一切都发生了…”
All of a sudden you’ve created a distraction, a needless opponent. Bryant had endless energy in his 20s, but everything comes harder now. Everything comes with emerging doubts, with a suggestion that LeBron James(notes) has passed him, that the game’s greatest player is, well, no longer the game’s greatest player. Bryant isn’t chasing Jay-Z as his model, but rather M.J. He wants fists full of rings. He’s trying to get between Jordan’s six titles and Bill Russell’s 11. He’s trying to create a championship legacy that no player of his generation can call his own.
突然之间，你给自己制造了一件麻烦事儿，一个你不必要的对手。布莱恩特在他20岁的时候有使不完的经历，但是现在一切都会困难许多，每一件事都会带来新的猜疑，人们纷纷在猜测勒布朗-詹姆斯已经超过了他，他是否是最伟大的球员，布莱恩特没有选择Jay-Z作为他的模板，他选择了M.J，他想让自己的手上戴满了戒指，他试图能够站在乔丹的6个总冠军戒指和拉塞尔的11个总冠军戒指中间，他想要创造一个总冠军王朝，这样在他同代的球员当中，没有人能够和他平起平坐。
Even so, this has been a season of doubting Bryant. Before the All-Star break, with Kobe finally resting an ankle injury, you couldn’t listen to Southern California sports-talk radio without the most preposterous premise being peddled on the airwaves: Look at the way these Lakers play without Bryant, look at the ball movement, look at how they’re better without him. The Lakers won a few games without Kobe, and somehow that became an indictment of his greatness. Pure folly.
“A lot of times they run out of things to talk about,” Bryant said. “They talk about things that have no relevance, that make no sense. They forgot that last year, playing exactly the same way, we won a championship. But they get excited about a four-game winning streak.
“很多时候他们谈论这些的时候都会扔掉很多事情，”布莱恩特说道，“他们讨论事情的时候不会切中主题，这是毫无意义的，他们忘记了去年，我们同样用的这种方式打球，我们赢下了总冠军，但是现在他们却在为四连胜而开心。”
“…We have to focus on the big picture. That’s what I try to do.”
“…我们需要将目标放在大的蓝图上，那是我努力去做的。”
Someone close to Bryant suggested that his angry disposition after beating Toronto on Wednesday with a fabulous fade-away was born of this message: Don’t expect me to always bail everyone out. In some ways, the Lakers take Bryant for granted, believing that he’ll always save them in the final minutes.
一些接近布莱恩特的人说了，在布莱恩特周三以一记后仰跳投击败多伦多的时候的发火发出了一个讯息：不要指望我总是能够一个人搞定对方，在有些时候，湖人将布莱恩特当做了救世主，相信他总是能够在最后几分钟救出他们。
“Yeah, sure,” Bryant agreed. “I’ve been in L.A. for 14 years now, and I think people have gotten used to seeing me do things like that.”
“是的，当然了，”布莱恩特对这一断电相当赞同，“我现在在洛杉矶已经14年了，我想人们对于我能够做出那样的壮举已经见惯不惯了。”
The thirtysomething Bryant has discovered something the twentysomething had a harder time with: Restraint can be his salvation. This started with Shaq’s rap assault two years ago, where Bryant’s non-response went against every fiber of his DNA. Yet it changed the public dynamic of how people perceived the Shaq-Kobe feud, turned Kobe into the grown-up and Shaq into the pesty, immature kid.
现在30岁的布莱恩特已经发现了一些20多岁时候的他很难发现的东西：克制可以避免很多不必要的麻烦。这是从2年前沙克的rap攻击他的时候开始的，这一次布莱恩特没有发表任何的回应，而这也改变了大众对于科比-沙克世仇的热情度，这也让科比成为了人们眼中一个成熟的男人，而沙克则成为了一个不成熟的小屁孩儿。
It did something else, too: It’s colored the way Bryant’s treated his sidekick, Gasol. Make no mistake: Kobe has engendered Gasol with much more public respect than Shaq ever did him. He hasn’t been condescending to or belittling of him. Yes, he’ll go after Gasol and Bynum for failing to play hard and tough and sustained. Basketball’s greatest coaches are always the superstars who hold teammates accountable.
同样这也改变了一些其他的事儿：这同样影响了科比对待他的搭档——加索尔的方式。他没有再犯任何错误，科比对公众给了更多对加索尔的尊重，这远远多于之前沙克给他的。他从来没有对他表示出什么高傲的态度或者贬低他，是的，他说过加索尔和拜纳姆应该打的更加努力，更加强硬，应该能够持续这样的表现，但是篮球里最伟大的球员不就应该对他的队友负责么。
So, yes, when Gasol has been so publicly disparaging of Bryant’s mode of attack, it naturally has to rankle him. Gasol did it on several occasions this season, including after Sunday’s loss in Orlando. His theme’s been wanting the ball, wanting Bryant to come inside with the pass. “It’s nothing against Kobe or any individual here,” Gasol insisted. “It’s all about our team success. I think he understands that’s why I think that way, why I might say those things. There’s no harm intended.”
所以，当加索尔公开表示对布莱恩特的攻击模式表示不满的时候，这肯定会让他很痛苦，加索尔这赛季已经这样表示过好几次了，包括上周日输给奥兰多的比赛之后，他的目的就是要球，希望布莱恩特能够将球多往内线传。“我这不是针对科比或者任何其他个人，”加索尔坚持说到，“我这都是为了球队的胜利，我想他会理解我为什么要这样说，我为什么会说这些，我完全没有要伤害谁的意思。”
No one is buying it, but whatever. Bryant is practicing a diplomacy in his 30s which didn’t exist in his thermonuclear 20s. As Fisher suggested, Bryant’s forever diagnosing his team and the climate in which it exists.
但是似乎没人买账，布莱恩特在他30岁的时候使用了和他在20岁的时候所不同的外交策略，就像费舍尔所说的，布莱恩特现在永远都更在意的是球队的氛围。
These Lakers are 48-18 and have fallen three games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the best record in basketball. Looking back at previous Lakers teams which tried to repeat as champions, Bryant said, “This is kind of the typical malaise you go through this time of the year waiting for the playoffs. The teams we had in the past went through the same kind of lull. But ultimately we had a sense of urgency to get out of it. But the jury is still out about whether we’re able to do that.”
现在湖人的战绩是48-18，落后克利夫兰骑士的联盟最佳战绩还有3场比赛，这一切似乎都和上赛季一样，他们似乎要重复上赛季夺冠的那一刻，布莱恩特说道，“这是很典型的萎靡症状，每年到这个时候，当等待季后赛的到来的时候都会发生这样的情况。而在过去我们所超越过的那些球队一样的都会这样，但是我们最终会找到一种紧迫感来走出这个困境，而我们能否做到（卫冕）还是个未知数。”
Between now and then, the increasingly benevolent dictatorship of Kobe Bryant will allow its people freedom of speech. He thinks these things through for hours upon hours, and Pau Gasol can have his say for now. For his own sake, Gasol had better get it all out of his system and deliver come May and June. Hell to pay then.
在现在和6月份这段时间里，科比-布莱恩特的独裁将会越来越具有善意，他现在允许公民的言论自由了。他认为这些东西会随着时间而过去，而加索尔现在可以这么说，他有自己的理由，但是在5月份6月份他必须要将这一切排除出他的系统，因为那个时候他需要支付现在说的一切
