People: Apr. 2, 2001

It's one thing for KOBE BRYANT and Shaquille O'Neal to have an ongoing personality conflict. But now Bryant isn't doing his homework, and that's the kind of behavior his coach just won't tolerate. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson said his 22-year-old superstar was bored with the team's offense and a potentially divisive force in the locker room, but perhaps more ominously, a slack reader. Jackson assigned the Italian-raised Bryant Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres because "Kobe's a real Mediterranean kid," said Jackson. "I thought the book would be a good look at the culture he's attached to. It's a beautiful book. Tragic. But he didn't like it. Last year I gave him a book by Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle, about a black youth who grows up in a white community. But Kobe had no affinity for it. He's not willing to let someone else's ideas penetrate his mind." Or perhaps he just prefers the top picks on Amazon.com