Mike Bibby doesn’t look very imposing as he stands beneath one of the three televisions hanging from the ceiling of the Kings locker room. He doesn’t look imposing at all -- skinny, unassuming, a little hunched. He looks the way basketball players used to look before the game found the weight room. In a world of outsized personalities and custom-built egos, Bibby seems to take up only the space necessary to accommodate his 6'1", 190-pound body. From where he stands, he has to look almost directly overhead to see the screen, so the pose is that of a little kid mesmerized by falling rain.

There’s a reason for his attentiveness: On the screen are his former team, the Grizzlies, and their current point guard, Jason Williams. In a way, this affords Bibby the opportunity to watch some of his past and some of his present. If this seems to defy the limits of your personal time-space continuum, then you don’t understand the hold Williams had on the team and the city of Sacramento. It’s a bond -- only gradually fraying as this season’s Kings accumulate wins -- that forces Bibby to live with his predecessor every day.

And on this Tuesday night in mid-December, Bibby is watching Williams toss up threes like confetti. Left wing, right wing, straight away, pulling up on a three-on-one, casting with nobody underneath -- it’s the complete White Chocolate oeuvre. The ball goes between his legs and behind his back and out of his hands like smoke. The shots are falling, too. Three in a row in the first quarter against the Wizards, and the fans in Memphis, like the fans in Sacramento before them, are reacting as if Williams’ abilities trigger something verging on the orgasmic.

There are three or four other Kings watching. By the time the third three lands safely, they’re yelling and laughing and shaking their heads. They’ve seen it all before, but it’s new every time. Bibby keeps watching, silent and motionless. One of the announcers says, “Well, that’s Jason. He’ll either shoot you into the game or shoot you out of it.”

Bibby’s attention is diverted by a question. “You agree with that, Mike?” he’s asked.

He looks around and shakes his head accusingly at the questioner, indicating neither agreement nor dissent. He is detached, distant, an impartial observer. For the most part, everything stays inside. You can’t read him, and it doesn’t take long to realize that’s by choice. He is steady, smart and patient, and that’s why he is here, in this locker room, and Williams is on the television screen, playing in Memphis, winning one of every three. As he watches Williams and considers the question, Bibby seems to know what he says will be used against him. He wants no part of this.

“I’m fine where I’m at,” he says.

Bibby knows Williams wasn’t just a basketball player in Sacramento. He was a gift, a civic keepsake who, along with Chris Webber, provided a living testament to possibility. The Kings -- the lowly, wretched, laughable Kings -- could win, and while they did, they could make you slap your forehead in both disbelief and exasperation. The fans loved Williams and they hated Williams -- often on consecutive possessions -- but whatever he was, he was theirs.

But on draft day last June, the Kings made a decision to alter the course of the franchise. GM Geoff Petrie traded Williams for Bibby, choosing steady over spectacular, form over flash, probability over possibility. Bibby might not sell as many jerseys, the reasoning went, but he’d win more games. Important games.

“When I first got here, all I heard was ‘Lakers, Lakers, Lakers,’ ” Bibby says. And the significance of Lakers, Lakers, Lakers is this: The Kings believe that a 55-win, second-round team can become a championship team. They believe in the tattoo on Bibby’s back -- Team Dime. And they believe a dependable, team-first point guard was the final link in the chain.

Which is quite a change for Bibby. Beat the Lakers? In Vancouver, Bibby couldn’t count on beating the Clippers. Win a title? Before this year, he’d never won more than 23 games in a season. When Bibby joined the Kings, reserve center Scot Pollard introduced himself and punched Bibby in the shoulder as a jocular payback for leading Arizona past Pollard’s Kansas Jayhawks in the ’97 NCAA Tournament. Bibby was a freshman that year, as Arizona won the title. Pollard’s punch is symbolic of Bibby’s career -- his days at Zona are the last many remember of him. “You’re going to have to reintroduce him to the NBA,” Pollard joked.

Pressure in Vancouver was clearing customs and finding a good tax man. Pressure in Sacramento is replacing a quasi-legend and bearing up night after night under the burden of heavy expectations. How is he handling it? Quietly, nearly Sphinx-like. This is one guarded guard, and he plays the way he conducts himself -- calmly and unspectacularly -- which was precisely the idea. The Kings know what they’re going to get: 14 points, around 5 assists and few, if any, costly turnovers. He plays with a semi-scientific, John Stockton mentality, content to take a back seat until he decides the defense is taking him for granted. And, in a concept new to the Kings, he does not view the two-hand chest pass as a character flaw.

“Jason wasn’t getting better,” says Kings coach Rick Adelman. “We’re all fond of him, but I felt he had to work on certain things if he was going to get better. We hadn’t seen that. We had to look ahead to the playoffs. Who’s going to get you past those teams? We think Mike’s good enough to make the difference.”

***

"Dad-dy hates you!" That’s what they would yell. They’d yell it and then follow it with the clap, clap clap-clap-clap that turns it into something organized. It was Jan. 29, 1998, and the fans at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion sang that song for 40 minutes. It was a high-decibel reminder of Bibby’s estrangement from his father, USC coach and former NBA guard Henry Bibby, who left the family when Mike was 2. That night at Stanford, Mike was a sophomore at Arizona, 19 years old, growing up quickly and publicly.

How did he handle it? He smiled. Smiled and played. Kept it all inside and unleashed it through his game. They told him his dad hated him, and they thought that would hurt, but those people who were yelling didn’t know the whole story. They probably never will. That stays inside too.

How did he handle it? Let the stats speak:

He scored 26 points, had 10 assists and 1 turnover, and No. 6 Arizona beat No. 4 Stanford, 93-75. He got the same abuse everywhere, and he still hears it.

He responds the same way -- no response at all.

Sitting in the Kings players’ lounge, watching the NBA’s cable channel as it plays an endless loop of mid-’80s highlights, Bibby chews on his fingers and speaks without taking his eyes off the screen. This is the way he plays -- mind and body engaged, eyes seemingly elsewhere. He knows from the start the conversation will find its way toward the relationship with his father. When it does, the answers become shorter, the pauses longer. An indication of his attitude toward self-disclosure is on his right calf, where another tattoo reads, “Only God Can Judge Me.”

“Those people that yelled at me, they just think my father wasn’t there,” Mike says. “That was what was in the paper, but there was more to it than that.”

Mike and Henry didn’t speak for years. Henry attempted to recruit his son to play at USC, but his calls were not returned. Since Mike entered the NBA and Henry established himself in the coaching profession, they say they’ve made some strides toward reconciliation. Says Mike, “We talk, but ... we talk, know what I mean? We talk, let’s leave it at that. But as far as bringing him back in my life like my mom’s in my life? I don’t think that will happen.”

Henry’s view of the relationship is far rosier. “It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven now that I have a relationship with my son,” he says. “I’ve never talked about this before, because I never thought it was anyone’s business. I hope he’s learned from my mistakes and can be a better father than I was. I hope I can help him not make those mistakes.”

Mike’s half-brother, Dane Flores, says Henry and Mike “holler at each other every once in a while, so it’s better. Dad’ll leave a message, and then Mike’ll leave a message back. Sometimes they hook up. Not great, but better. What people don’t understand is, this was never about two people who didn’t get along. This was about two people who didn’t know each other.”

Henry asks, “Who’s business is it? I can tell you I love my son, but why should you care?” Virginia Bibby prefers to stay out of it. She’s the one who cajoled Mike, a self-admitted mama’s boy, into jumping rope and working on his jump shot until the Phoenix summer heat would force him inside. She’s the one who made him sandwiches until he left for college because, she says, “He’d always say, ‘It tastes better when you make it.’ ” She’s the one who bites her tongue as Mike is described as the “son of Henry Bibby.” Her interest is in making sure Mike isn’t portrayed as resistant to his father’s attempts at reconciliation. “The only time we think about the relationship is when someone from outside brings it up,” she says. “We’re just trying to put it in the past.”

Mike’s 23 now, with two children and longtime girlfriend Darcy Watkins living with him in Sacramento. As is typical in the early-entry NBA world, where self-sufficiency is purely optional, Bibby says, “I don’t like to do for myself.” That’s why his brother Hank Bibby, Dane, and a cousin lived with him in Vancouver. That’s why both brothers now live in the same neighborhood, within eyeshot of ARCO Arena.

He stares at the television. Back in the 80’s, a young Detlef Schrempf is taking someone to the hoop. When he decides the questions have become too personal, his words and tone sharpen ever so slightly. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he says. His eyes betray nothing. “It’s in the past. You learn, you grow, you accept things as they are. You learn what you can control.”

***

This much Bibby knows: He can control a fastbreak, he can control the pace of a game, he can control how much of himself he wants disseminated in public. The Kings believe he can help control their destiny.

So, how is he handling it? With a shrug, mostly. Like he knew it all along. He’d already won more games, 24, by Jan. 2 than he’d ever won in a season. He’s reacted to replacing Williams with his usual imperviousness, as if the whole issue were no more of a bother than an arena filled with fans insulting his family dynamic.

Bibby learned of the pull Williams has on his former teammates when the Grizzlies beat the Kings in Memphis on Nov. 26. When the game ended, several Kings embraced Williams at center court. "I thought it could’ve been handled better,” Adelman says. “I’m guessing there was a better time and place for that.”

Bibby shrugs and says, “No big deal. I was having my own thing with my guys [the Grizzlies].”

And remember Lakers, Lakers, Lakers? Well, in his first opportunity against the champions, Bibby had a strained performance (4-for-13, 4 turnovers) and the Kings lost, 93-85. He admits, “I put too much pressure on myself. I tried to do too much.” But when the teams met at ARCO on Dec. 7, Bibby scored 21 with 6 assists and no turnovers as the Kings won, 97-91.

And how did he handle that? After the game, Bibby conducted an on-court interview as the team’s star of the game, got dressed in a loose gray sweatsuit and walked out of the locker room carrying his Bible and a slim paperback titled, Help Me -- I’m Stressed!

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got stress,” he says. “I’ve got stress with basketball. I’ve always got stress with family.”

He pauses, perhaps thinking he’s divulged slightly more information than necessary, then adds, “Whatever it is, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

This article appears in the January 21 issue of ESPN The Magazine.