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Kobe reportedly reiterates trade demand

Lakers star meets with Buss in Barcelona, says Knicks, Bulls are two options

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Kobe Bryant has spent his entire 11-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers.
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msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 12:57 p.m. ET June 16, 2007

Kobe Bryant has decided he wants out of L.A. — again.

Just weeks after announcing on a sports radio show of being "frustrated" and expressing a desire to be traded from the Lakers only to later back off after talking to coach Phil Jackson, Bryant met with Lakers owner Jerry Buss on Friday in Barcelona and reiterated his trade demand, the Los Angeles Times and Press Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) reported.

Buss was reportedly shocked by Bryant's stance and left the meeting unsure what he would do. Both papers reported he said it would be "impossible" to get equal value in return for Bryant.

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The Lakers confirmed that the two did meet on Friday, but would not talk about the details of the meeting. Bryant was in Barcelona on vacation, and Buss was on vacation in China before going to London and then to Barcelona.

"Our position is that it's a private meeting between the two of them and it shall remain private between the two of them," Lakers public relations director John Black told the Press Enterprise.

Bryant's agent, Rob Pelinka, was unavailable.

Bryant stated almost three weeks ago in a barrage of interviews on radio and in newspapers that he wanted out of L.A. “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.”

But then later that day he backed off his comments, telling KLAC radio "I don’t want to go anywhere, this is my team."

Bryant is the only NBA player with a no-trade clause in his contract. He had said he would waive that clause. But he could make a trade more difficult because he has a three-team wish list, the Press Enterprise reported Friday. Two of the teams are the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks.

One report had the Lakers hoping to acquire Bulls center Ben Wallace, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng and Chicago's No. 1 draft pick (9) for Bryant.

But the sources said every team, including the Bulls, knows the Lakers will try to "gut" a team in order to get as much value as possible for Bryant.

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Bryant could also veto a trade if he thinks the team has to give up too many players, which, the sources said, could also make a trade more difficult.

For a team to acquire Bryant, it cannot swap one or more players exceeding 125 percent of his $19,490,625 million salary he'll earn this season.

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