Kobe Bryant keeps drifting back to the center court sideline, getting drawn to Yao Ming and Robert Horry with a near magnetic force. Bryant cannot help himself.

He needs to say something — make that plenty of somethings — to the NBA global icon and ringmaster sitting in the best seats in the house, the owner's seats. Even as Andrew Bynum, the young center who Kobe now completely depends on, the way he used to depend on Shaq, is self destructing down the court, Kobe keeps talking at Horry and Yao. It's hard to tell at first if Kobe even notices that Bynum has been ejected — for picking up a second childish technical foul.

Kobe is barking at Yao and Horry even as Bynum does his silly hand slapping with all the paying customers sitting in the front row next to the Lakers' bench post ejection.

"He told Yao that if he was still playing, he'd beat his butt too," a courtside observer tells CultureMap later.

Even from 13 rows up in the Silestone Club seats where I sat, it's obvious Kobe is not exchanging Blue-ray recommendations with the former Houston Rockets. Or quizzing Yao on his new wine.

Kobe needs his trash talk. He's so determined to channel Michael Jordan that he'll be like Mike even when if it means ignoring what's really important.

This is the scene from the Toyota Center Tuesday night. The one regular season visit from the Lakers in this NBA Lockout-shortened season hauls that old Toyota buzz out of mothballs like the Clippers and the Oklahoma City Thunder still never can. There is Houston Astros' minority owner John Eddie Williams in the Silestone seats with his whole extended family. There's Erica Rose mugging for cellphone pics.

And of course, there's Yao.

It's no coincidence that his first game back in Toyota as an ex-player comes on Lakers' night. LA still brings out the stars in Houston. Unfortunately for Kobe, it also brings out the worst in the Lakers.

Up 40-25 after a dominant first quarter, and still up 12 points with six minutes left, LA appears poised to roll to the expected, no-thought win over the depleted, under-talented Rockets. The Lakers fold though, allowing Kevin McHale's guttier team to rip off a 12-0 run — to rip away a game the Lakers never should have lost.

It starts with Bynum too — the good and the bad. With the 7-foot All-Star scoring eight of his team's first 10 points, the Lakers look dominant. Pau Gasol's 14 points in the first quarter lead LA, but as much as that surely pains Rockets general manager Daryl Morey at the thought of what could have been, Gasol largely plays off Bynum. Kobe too.

It's a lesson in what can be for these Lakers — and then Bynum's immaturity yanks it all away.

Losing It

Once Bynum gets himself kicked out, for being unable to hold back from swearing at the refs — on a night when he literally towers over the opposition — the Rockets suddenly have a scrapper's chance.

This is why LA has no chance to survive the West, as shaky as the top of conference sometimes looks with the Thunder and the Spurs, as easily as they dismantle the Mavericks in Dallas Wednesday night. Bryant is incapable of carrying the Lakers for multiple playoff series anymore. He cannot win without Bynum — just like he once couldn't win without Shaq.

That must gall Kobe. But it doesn't make it any less true. Bryant's future legacy depends on a guy with the emotional maturity of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Bynum manages to stick around for all of the Lakers' 109-93 win over the Mavericks, those fluke defending champs, on Wednesday. Oh, he picks up his third technical in two nights for hanging on the rim in full-pose mode after a fourth quarter dunk. And he's not close to dominant — nine points and seven rebounds in 36 minutes.

He's there. But he still shows no clue about the night before in Houston. Instead of taking responsibility for getting kicked out against the Rockets, Bynum shrugs off the loss as completely not his fault.

“We were up 12 with six minutes to go, we should have won that game,’’ Bynum tells reporters in Dallas after Lakers' shootaround. “We’ve got guys that come in and play and do good things."

In other words, it is Bynum's teammates who didn't do the job. Not him.

You couldn't find a greater contrast than these McHale Rockets, who somehow find themselves three games over .500 even as the missed games pile up for the starting backcourt of Kyle Lowry and Kevin Martin.

"In this league, you're either an innate fighter or you're not," McHale has said of these Rockets. "And these guys are fighters."

McHale's bled more out of what Morey's given him than could be reasonably expected. The roster McHale was handed at the beginning of the season screamed lottery team.

You almost wondered if the Rockets wanted to plunge full force into rebuilding, if the idea wasn't to maybe get a better ping pong ball's chance at a franchise player.

The Lakers who already have at least two — and maybe three — franchise-worthy players keep adding the type of difference making complementary pieces the Rockets keep missing on too. Ramon Sessions (17 points and nine assists in Dallas, 14 points in Houston) is the latest. But LA lacks something these Rockets do possess: An ever-beating heart.

Yao is in his front-row seat by the opening tip to see it — which is more than you can say for many in Toyota as Houston sticks to its late-arriving ways even on Lakers night.

Later, Kobe stands there at center court, barking at Yao, a 31-year-old with a broken down body who looks content with his new life in that tan suit jacket. Bryant might as well be yelling into an empty room.

When everyone in the building knows he should be screaming at Bynum.