Multiple sources told ESPN.com Wednesday that Kobe Bryant plans to change his jersey number to 24 next season. This is bad for all of the Kobe fans around the world who made his No. 8 jersey a best seller over the last several years. However, it?s good news for Reebok and the Lakers who will cash next season when all of his faithful fans shell out their hard-earned cash for the newest Hollywood fashion statement.

You might think the number change is an effort by Kobe to start anew in the league, or maybe even to return to his roots, he wore No. 24 at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, but not me.

I don?t buy either of those theories, but I do have a few of my own:

Kobe?s buddy Kiefer Sutherland offered him a role on 24 next year if he changed his number.

Jim Jackson, currently the owner of the Lakers No. 24, will be traded soon anyway.

He hopes to get even fewer fouls called on him. I mean Bennett Salvatore is old, he?ll charge fouls to a phantom No. 8.

It?s one more than LeBron?s number!

Hey, Ron does it all the time. Why can?t Kobe?

There?s only room for one No. 8 in Los Angeles and that?s the Clippers? Yaroslav Korolev.

Manny Ramirez wears 24 and whenever he does anything immature or selfish they say that?s just ?Manny being Manny.? Now the Lakers can say it?s just ?Kobe being Kobe!?

He felt it was the only way to overshadow the career of Jonathan Bender.

He doesn?t want to be associated with Antoine Walker. Who would? That guy chucks up shots like there?s no tomorrow.

Then I thought to myself. Isn?t it strange that Kobe and Phil Jackson have been getting along so well this season? Kobe?s a proud man, and Jackson wrote some pretty negative things about him in his book, The Last Season, yet Kobe is still buying into his system this season. Sure Jackson is letting Kobe take more than twenty-seven shots a night, but something has to be up.

Then it hit me. Phil loves his Zen, and all that meditation-type stuff. Maybe he and Kobe have been meditating together, thinking about game plans, statistics, and their future together. Maybe they?ve been talking about the possibility of Kobe?s shattering more scoring records.

That?s it!

Kobe?s new number will be 24, which is triple his current number. Triple? Triple digits. Think about it?it?s an omen. Kobe will break Wilt Chamberlain?s single-game scoring record in 2006-2007.

That?s got to be it.