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But you can't keep Southern California's most volatile sports resource, Mount Kobe, from erupting for long. The idea in this case was to ignore him and maybe he would ... stay. Instead, Kobe Bryant still wants to be traded, meeting with owner Jerry Buss in Spain late last week to reiterate his request to be freed from the torture. This time, according to story breaker Brad Turner of The Press-Enterprise, Kobe Bryant even had a specific list of three NBA cities he would agree to play in. This was different than the interplanetary travel he had proposed three weeks ago. "At this point, I'll go play on Pluto," he had said on national radio. Most people weren't sure if they should take him seriously, but just in case, Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak checked to see if Pluto was in the Western Conference. Rumored deals surfaced. Kobe for Neil Armstrong, Bill "Spaceman" Lee and the Starship Enterprise seemed workable until a NASA source named "Scotty" revealed that the vehicle "is about to blow, captain!" Kobe Bryant's updated list reportedly includes Chicago and New York. Pundits immediately went about dissecting the various possibilities. The Bulls have a lot of young talent, including Ben Gordon and Luol Deng, that might ease the pain on the Los Angeles Lakers side -- although you'd want to make sure you weren't in the way of the stampede of season ticket holders on their way out of Staples Center yelling, "Ben Who?" and "Luol What?" Others wondered how Kobe Bryant would fare in the shadow of Michael Jordan, figuratively and literally, since there's a large statue of Jordan outside the United Center in Chicago. Of course, Kobe Bryant already has played in the shadow of a statue in LA -- dubious defender Smush Parker -- and probably prefers the bronzed kind. For its part, New York seemingly doesn't have much to offer, certainly no superstars the magnitude of Kobe Bryant, unless you throw in some Yankees and get the Dodgers involved. LA would get David Lee, Jamal Crawford and Alex Rodriguez. New York gets Kobe Bryant, and pitchers Derek Lowe, 6-6, and Mark Hendrickson, 6-9. Lowe was an all-state basketball player in high school in Michigan and Hendrickson played with four NBA teams between 1996 and 2000. How the Yankees and Knicks share the tall pitchers, they can decide. Anyway, the madness continued over the weekend when news sources quoted Kobe Bryant's Web site, a June 17 posting, confirming his thoughts on being traded: "When you love something as much as I love the Los Angeles Lakers it's hard even imagining being somewhere else." "ONE THING I will never sacrifice when it comes to basketball is WINNING." "The Los Angeles Lakers and me just have different visions for the future." As it turned out, it sounded suspiciously familiar. Yep, it was an 18-day old message with a new date on it. You have to hand it to Kobe Bryant and his people for being so thoughtful as to re-release Kobe's greatest, super sincere Web site quotes. Hey, David Letterman frequently retells jokes and often re-runs three-week old shows. Show biz is show biz. In the recycled message, Kobe Bryant also thanks his fans again for their "unbelievable" support. You might wonder how long his blue-collar faithful will hang in there with him, but that's an easy one. As long as he is wearing a Los Angeles Lakers jersey next November, sticking his jump shot and whistling reverse dunks through the net, he can do anything, including taking them for granted as the gullible suckers they are. Unbelievable support? No, totally predictable support. Hey, it's true. All sports fans understand they have to endure a lot of grief, including the manipulative clichés of condescending athletes. Kobe Bryant's message says, "I still love, with all my heart, the Los Angeles Lakers legacy." But honestly, he doesn't love it as much as diehard Los Angeles Lakers fans -- the three generations who have been treated to an amazing franchise of recurring champions. From West, Baylor and Chamberlain, to Magic and Kareem, to Kobe and Shaq, the Los Angeles Lakers grew the Southland's most intense fan base. They love winning, too, but they aren't jumping ship when times get tough. They are loyal to a fault, one of the biggest being that they forgive their stars almost anything. Kobe Bryant is lucky that he can have it both ways -- stridently insisting to Buss he doesn't want to be a Laker anymore, and resting assured that if the Los Angeles Lakers wisely and stubbornly refuse to trade him, he can play next year, say all the right things about how he's a Laker for life, and know he will be greeted with the same adulation he's used to. He comes back to Staples as a Bull, though, he may wish, at least for a fleeting moment, he was on Pluto.
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