Late in 2000, their first season together, Kobe Bryant lamented to confidants he never had a private conversation with new Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
The only interaction came when Jackson gave Bryant a book to read — “Black Like Me.” The non-fiction classic depicts a white man in the 1960s transforming his skin to pretend to be black.
Bryant, who was raised in Italy and spent his high-school years in a tony Philadelphia suburb, was sensitive early on about not having the inner-city street cred of an Allen Iverson. Bryant was offended by Jackson’s book selection.
“This is what f–ked it up for [Phil],’’ Bryant confidant Scoop Jackson said in “Showboat,” the recently released Bryant biography.