Kobe Demands Shaq Demand Trade Back To Lakers

LOS ANGELES--After reiterating his trade demand to Lakers owner Jerry Buss on Friday, Kobe Bryant took the airwaves today with yet another demand: that Shaquille O’Neal demand a trade from the Heat back to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he and Kobe could make a run at another championship.

Bryant said a reunion with O’Neal is the only thing that will keep him from forcing a trade.

“I’m fed up, you know? I’m frustrated,” Bryant told Stephen A. Smith on ESPN radio. “As an organization we’re not doing the things we need to do to get to this team back on track. In the three years since Shaq left we haven’t made any progress. We need him to come back where he belongs. Forget about Miami, dude. Demand a trade. Throw your weight around a little. If not, I’ll be playing somewhere else next year, and don't come crying to me when it happens. ”

Bryant acknowledged the difficulty in working out a deal to satisfy both teams, but said Shaq should use his leverage to pressure the Heat into making the deal anyway.

“Shaq is the man over there. All he has to do is put his foot down,” Bryant said. “Besides, we have some decent trading chips. We have Smush Parker and Luke Walton and Andrew Bynum. Bynum has a ton of upside, you know. He’s seven feet tall. That’s only three feet shorter than the rim! It’s a huge advantage. And Luke Walton is a good passer. That would leave us with me, Shaq, and a bunch of other crap, which was pretty much the formula to winning those three titles.”

When the Lakers traded Shaq to the Heat in 2004, Bryant believed he could lead the team to a title on his own. Unfortunately they failed to advance past the first round, while O’Neal won one with the Heat.

After years of frustration, Bryant is ready to admit that he can’t win without Shaq.

“Obviously he was the reason we won those titles,” he said. “I played a part in it, of course, but he was the straw that stirred the drink. He went off to Miami and won a title with Dwyane Wade and a bunch of walking undead, and I’m sitting here in LA, putting up 80 points a game, unable to win a damn playoff series. You know who I blame for this? Jerry Buss. He should never have listened to me when I told him I could carry this team on my own. That was just another in a long line of stupid decisions. ”

Despite Kobe’s insistence, league observers say there is virtually no chance of Shaq demanding a trade back to the Lakers and that Bryant should instead focus on his own trade demand.

“Shaq has no desire to leave Miami, and Miami has no desire to try and deal him,” said a league source with knowledge of the situation. “Why doesn’t Kobe just ask to be traded to Miami? They could send Odom too, and get back Antoine Walker and Jason Williams and maybe a second round draft pick. Or maybe they could just trade him straight up for Dwyane Wade. Does that seem crazy? It seems logical to me. Then again, I’m an anonymous source, so every trade scenario seems logical to me.”

The Lakers are still holding out hope that they can appease Bryant without trading him or reacquiring Shaq. Instead, they plan to pursue other options such as Kevin Garnett or Jermaine O’Neal.

“We feel like if we can improve the team significantly enough we can make Kobe very happy,” Buss told the LA Times yesterday. “I think we have a real good chance of landing a Jermaine O’Neal or possibly even a Kevin Garnett, and if that fails, maybe someone like Jason Kidd. It should be real easy once we mention that we’re willing to part with Andrew Bynum. I mean, who wouldn’t want to trade their franchise player for a 19-year-old kid who might be a decent center some day? It seems like a brainer to me.”

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