"Everyone else on the Los Angeles Lakers had left and gone home Sunday night, and finally Kobe Bryant was on his way, too. He had slid into a side room to visit with a child from the Make a Wish Foundation, and now walked down the long corridor toward the Staples Center loading dock. A text message popped into his phone. It was coach Mike Brown, and he wanted to run something past his star player.

Bryant stopped and asked a locker room attendant: "Hey, is Mike still here?"

Told yes, Bryant turned around and marched back through the double steel doors and disappeared into Brown's office for a 20-minute consult. For Bryant, it's a different dynamic with a coach, a partnership born on his own clock. Until this year, he had never had a coach awake at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., to trade thoughts.

"He's like me," Bryant said later. "He doesn't sleep. We talk all the time, and about everything: What we need to do, how we need to adjust. Constant communication.""