Bryant Ready To Play For L.A.

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Kobe Bryant's saga continues. According to the Los Angeles Times, Bryant on Tuesday told a group of reporters that he would "strap it up" and play if he is still on the Los Angeles Lakers' roster when the season starts on October 30. Bryant's comments came just six days after Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss admitted that he "would certainly listen" to trade offers for the two-time scoring champion. The nine-time All-Star made his remarks to reporters who gathered around his car after Tuesday's practice. Buss' statement came after a rocky summer for Bryant, who peppered the news cycle with his on-again, off-again trade demands.

Bryant has been upset with the direction of the team and the lack of impact players around him. But Bryant and Buss had a supposed private conversation after the superstar's initial trade demand in late May. Bryant became upset after Buss revealed details about their meeting, the report said. "We just wanted to keep things quiet, just go about our business," Bryant said to the Times. "That caught me off guard a little bit. We've just got to get back to basics and just get ready and go from there." The newspaper also said that Bryant would not say if he had played his last game for the team that he helped - along with one-time nemesis Shaquille O'Neal - to three straight NBA championships earlier this decade. "I don't know," he said to the Times. "Talk to (general manager) Mitch (Kupchak) and Mr. Buss about that. I'm just getting ready. If I'm here, I'm ready to strap it up. My job is to play the game and get ready to play the game, and that's what I'm doing. "It's my job to play basketball. It's not my job to worry about what management is doing. I'm just going to get ready and let them do their job."

Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson, who reportedly talked Bryant out of his trade demands earlier this summer, does not feel any move will be made in the near future. "There's nothing imminent," Jackson said in the report. "We can't project anything right now. I think there's a certain progression of things that we have to go through. "We have to see how the feelings are in the situation, see if there can't be some remedies for it. From there, the next step takes place, and that is, how do we go forward as a basketball club?" Bryant can opt out of his contract prior to the 2009-10 campaign, when the Lakers owe him $23.03 million.

PHOTO: Kobe Bryant vs. Golden State last year at the Staples Center (Bradley Cox/NC Sports)