PHOENIX — When checking in with a buddy who now lives in Arizona to say I'd be in the area this weekend to cover the Lakers-Suns game on Sunday, I got quite a jolt. He volunteered this surprising news: "I'm coming around on Kobe."

What the?!

When people haven't liked Kobe Bryant in the past, their stances have been more concrete than Hoover Dam. You had more chance of getting Kwame Brown to score 81 points in a game than you had of getting a Kobe-hater to start "coming around."

But here was the crux of my friend J.T.'s rationale on Bryant: "What I like about him now is that he's focused on winning with his team and not just winning by himself."

J.T. is not an NBA diehard but is an educated sports fan. He remembers being awed by Bryant as far back as his high-school days but never became a Kobe guy. Like many, J.T. didn't see Bryant as tackling the challenge of winning championships as much as stretching his personal limits.

"I think fans hate that," J.T. said. "They say, 'Yeah, it's exciting to see a physical freak jump through the roof and shoot the ball while triple-teamed, but not at the cost of winning for your team."

Whether Bryant's lust for self-improvement actually cost the Lakers more than it helped them is very much debatable. Yet J.T.'s point is that he sees the latter-day Bryant providing both: highlight-reel thrills and a winning brand of leadership.

"Once Shaq (O'Neal) left, I never thought the Lakers could go as far as they did so fast," J.T. said.

So I approached Bryant after practice Saturday with the gist of J.T.'s take. I asked Bryant if he cared about getting a non-fan to "come around," and he said he definitely did. I asked Bryant about changing as a player, but there he did not agree.

"I've been playing the same way since I came in this league," Bryant said. "I haven't changed at all. I think the thing that has changed is my role on the team, so now things that I would've done when Shaquille was here in terms of getting in people's faces and demanding stuff from them or calling guys out or whatever, it's viewed as leadership. Back then, it was viewed as a young kid stepping out of line."

Whether Bryant wants to admit it, there are subtle things about his game that have matured and become more team-oriented. Phil Jackson will testify to that and to Bryant's greater understanding of teammate development, something due at least in part to Bryant learning to nurture his two daughters.

But Bryant was committed to playing team ball when it needed to be played to win championships, something few outsiders understand fully.

J.T.'s view is that Bryant is less concerned now with building or promoting himself — and thus has become a more complete player. Bryant's explanation is that he actually has become more concerned with his image being accurate — perhaps leading to people like J.T. better understanding him.

"A lot of things that people read about me and all this other stuff, it's a bunch of (bull), to be honest. Really," Bryant said. "What we've done from a marketing standpoint is just let people see who

I am as a person, for real — and then make their judgments from that point going forward."

So Bryant brought in a publicist, Catherine Sebring, to do day-to-day legwork and glad-handing, and hired Jerry Sawyer away from Nike to be his marketing director. They have shifted the focus from Bryant the singular, cold-blooded basketball killer to Bryant the fun, regular dude.

"Because of the challenge of people saying we'd never be able to get to that place again — these guys with these Harvard marketing degrees — what we decided to do was prove them wrong," Bryant said.

"So I took my little high-school education and Catherine's at USC and Jerry's at San Diego State, and we decided to turn this thing around."

No doubt that Bryant's leadership in getting USA Basketball the Olympic gold medal was a difference-maker, too. Instead of the world seeing Shaq vs. Kobe, it was Bryant sacrificing and winning by prioritizing all-out defense, something he actually loves to do in certain contexts.

And translating his joy from the Olympic experience needed no marketing.

"We all had such a fun time," Bryant said, noting that catching up with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Paul (he referred to them as "D, LeBron and CP") at the recent All-Star Weekend was the real thrill for him, not at all the hullabaloo over his reuniting and co-MVP'ing with O'Neal.

In any case, it's interesting which NBA star's name pops into J.T.'s head when he watches Bryant these days.

"I see Kobe with Kevin Garnett's intensity about his team — rather than about Kobe."

How much has Kobe Bryant changed his leadership and his image for the better? Enough to change the opinion of at least one fan.