An amateur video of Kobe Bryant badmouthing the Los Angeles Lakers' general manager Mitch Kupchak and teammate Andrew Bynum is being made available to Internet users on a pay-per-view basis.
The 24-second profanity-laced clip is attracting widespread interest, said its creators, who are remaining anonymous and won't release it for viewing until they say they have pre-sold 50,000 copies online, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on Tuesday.
John Black, Lakers spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that the makers of the video tried unsuccessfully to sell it to the National Basketball Association team.
"We are aware of the video and they contacted us a month ago and we told them we had no interest in buying it," Black said.
The amateur videographers say they were also offered US$100,000 for the rights by a Lakers fan who wanted to prevent it from being shown to the public. They decided instead to make it available for purchase on a Web site at US$1.99.
The video, in which Bryant is wearing sunglasses and a red shirt, was apparently shot by a "group of friends" in the parking lot of a shopping center in Newport Beach, California, where Bryant lives.
They said they do not believe Bryant was aware he was being filmed at the time.
The two-time National Basketball Association scoring champion has become increasingly upset over the direction of the Lakers.
Bryant told US newspapers earlier this month that he was fed up with empty promises from the Lakers management and that it was time to move on via the trade route.
Bryant, who joined the Lakers in 1996, has four years left on his contract, which also includes a no-trade clause which he would have to waive.
A snippet is now available on YouTube and the video is supposed to be available for viewing sometime in the next week.
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