Not that it will stop the media’s feeding frenzy, but Kobe Bryant did NOT tank that Game 7 in 2006

Not that the West finals are over but you have to admit Game 1 hardly lived up to expectations.

Or maybe the expectations got a little nuts, suggesting the media had too much time between series, or was on mushrooms.

In any case, Kobe Bryant didn’t tank Game 1.

That makes at least seven in a row he hasn’t tanked, even for those suspicious of his motives in Game 4 in Oklahoma City.

Phil Jackson didn’t retire.

There were no reports of LeBron James or John Calipari contacting the Lakers.

Outside, mayhem was averted when adroit scheduling kept the march protesting Jackson’s comments on Arizona’s immigration bill from running into the Clippers fans’ march, urging James to come.

LeBron, of course, was home watching on TV and hadn’t been accused of tanking anything since last week.

Steve Nash wasn’t called for palming.

Nash and Jackson didn’t come to blows over Phil’s critique.

Nor did The Times’ writers, who, if you haven’t noticed, are in an ongoing debate about Bryant — split into two camps, Apologists and Columnists.

You may also have noticed the media has changed from the innocent days before the Internet drove coverage.

With all the outlets going all-out for attention, it’s a new tabloid era. I don’t mean New York now, but the early 1900s, when dozens of papers vied for newsstand sales by whatever means necessary, up to and including plumping for war.

Of course, even if it’s now finger-painting with digital distribution, sportswriting was always a caricature about our heroes and everyone else’s lowlifes.

The only problem is taking it seriously, instead of as a parody of itself, like “The Front Page,” the 1928 play made into two movies with several takeoffs.

Take out the fedoras and nothing has changed, as the boys in the press room try to top each other, phoning in stories about the scheduled hanging of bumbling revolutionary Earl Williams:

“Now, this is what the condemned man ordered for his final meal: Shrimp cocktail with Thousand Island dressing, rare roast beef, Brussels sprouts, apple pie a la mode, Ovaltine.”

“For his last meal Williams is getting a 95-cent blue plate special from the greasy spoon across the street.”

“The authorities are prepared for a general uprising of radicals. . . . Extra guards have just been thrown around the jail, the municipal building, railroad terminals, elevated stations.”

“Sheriff Hartman’s just put 200 more relatives on the payroll to protect the city against the Red Army, which is leaving Moscow in a couple of minutes.”

No one is safe, not even Bryant and James, by far the game’s best players, both accused of tanking games this spring.

Not that it can’t happen. Wilt Chamberlain didn’t shoot from the field in the second half of his last game as a 76er, the Game 7 loss to the Celtics in 1968.

Michael Jordan took eight shots in a pivotal Game 5 loss to Detroit with the 1990 East finals tied, 2-2, after being asked to pass.

Bryant had that weird game at the end of the 2003-04 season in Sacramento.

Nevertheless, the, quote, controversy about Kobe tanking Game 7 in Phoenix in 2006 is a fairy tale, unsupported by any reporting, then or subsequently, with no good circumstantial case to explain it.

Jackson said later he asked Bryant, who had 23 points in the first half as the Suns went up by 15, to get the ball inside to Kwame Brown and Lamar Odom.

Surprise! It didn’t work.

“Now we’re 20 down,” Jackson said, “and I put in Brian Cook to get the screen-roll game going and they doubled Kobe and left Cook open. . . .

“Kobe finally tried to bust through the defense and got called for a charge and committed a turnover. So we’re down by 25 points and things have slipped away.”

Unlike the Sacramento game, when teammates showed their skepticism, leading to an angry confrontation with Bryant when it got into the papers, no Laker ever said a word about this one.

If Bryant was sending a message, it didn’t jibe with what he said afterward, continuing to insist they were a player away, as he had since Jackson’s return.

A year later the Suns rolled over them and an angry Bryant demanded changes (“Do it and do it now”), warming up for his Days of Rage.

Nevertheless, trailing by 16 with six minutes left in Game 5 three years ago, Bryant scored eight points, leading a late rally that cut the deficit to five.

It would be nice if Bryant was as thick-skinned as he once was, or as James is, and accepted this circus as today’s price of fame. Instead, Kobe makes everybody wait and answers questions in as few syllables as possible.

He’d better get used to it because I don’t think we’re in the 20th Century anymore.

Now it’s Comedy Central with box scores, like the guy who threw out that LeBron-and- John Wooden-to-the-Clippers package.

Oh, that was me, fooling around on Twitter.

Hey, it’s a living. Pass the mushrooms, I have reporting to do.

mark.heisler@latimes.com

Buy Lakers playoff tickets here

---

Clicking on Green Links will take you to a third-party e-commerce site. These sites are not operated by the Los Angeles Times. The Times Editorial staff is not involved in any way with Green Links or with these third-party sites.

---