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Bryant backtracks on trade demand after conversation

Believing he had been insulted and misled, Kobe Bryant asked the Los Angles Lakers for a trade on Wednesday and insisted nothing could change his mind.

Then something did. He spoke with coach Phil Jackson and backed off his request.

"I don't want to go anywhere, this is my team," Bryant told KLAC radio. "I love it here. I called Phil, man, he and I talked, it was an emotional conversation, but he just said, `You know what, Kobe? Let us try to figure this thing out.'"

"Phil is a guy I lean on a lot," he said.

About three hours earlier, in an interview with ESPN radio, Bryant said: "I would like to be traded, yeah. Tough as it is to come to that conclusion, there's no other alternative. It's rough, man, but I don't see how you can rebuild that trust. I just don't know how you can move forward in that type of situation."

conversation

Bryant also told KLAC, the Lakers' flagship station, that he hadn't heard from owner Jerry Buss, indicating a conversation could go a long way toward resolving the matter.

Buss issued a statement after Bryant's request, saying: "We are aware of the media reports. However, Kobe has not told us directly that he wants to be traded. We have made it very clear that we are building our team around Kobe and that we intend for him to be a Laker his entire career. We will speak directly to Kobe and until we do that, we will not comment publicly about this."

Bryant told KLAC that his agent had contacted general manager Mitch Kupchak early on Wednesday.

Bryant, who helped the Lakers win three consecutive NBA championships, has four years left on the seven-year, US$136.4 million contract he signed in July 2004, a day after Shaquille O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat.

Bryant became infuriated on Tuesday when a Los Angeles Times columnist quoted a Lakers "insider" as saying it was Bryant's insistence on getting away from O'Neal that prompted the trade to Miami.

Bryant told KLAC he knew who the so-called insider was, but wouldn't identify the person.

misled

Bryant also said he feels Buss misled him three years ago -- right before he re-signed with the Lakers -- by telling him one thing and Jackson something else about the team's goals.

The Lakers won championships from 2000-02 and reached the NBA finals again in 2004, losing to the Detroit Pistons. The team was broken up at that time. O'Neal was traded, Jackson left and other stalwarts -- Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Derek Fisher, Robert Horry and Rick Fox -- went elsewhere or retired.

The Lakers failed to make the playoffs the following season. With Jackson returning before the 2005-06 campaign, they finished seventh in the Western Conference in each of the past two years, but were eliminated by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs.

Bryant urged the team at season's end to do what it takes to get back into contention. He essentially repeated those comments last weekend in an interview with the Times.
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