J.A. Adande of the Los Angeles Times writes that the focus on Kobe Bryant and the Lakers has been so astronomical this season that not only are the actions surrounding the team making national headlines, but so are the thoughts.

Take for instance the ESPN report on Friday that stated the Laker front office held discussions last month on whether to give Bryant a leave of absence to relieve him of the pressure of shuttling to and from his pre-trial hearings and punish him for being late to practices.

As Adande writes with re-signing Bryant a priority this offseason why would they isolate him by asking him to temporarily leave?  It just does not make sense, which isn't to say that the discussions actually look place.

Before the Lakers' 106-100 victory over the Clippers, Jackson addressed the story by ESPN's David Aldridge.

"The answer to his question 'Did you ever consider [giving Bryant time off]?, and I said, 'Any time you're talking about a person going through a tense trial or a procedure, a pre-trial hearing like this, there's all kinds of things that go into the effectiveness of an employer and employee relationship, from Kobe doing what he's doing, which is performing ? going forward with the season, to a leave of absence," Jackson said. "There's all kinds of things in between the spectrum. We've discussed or talked about it from all different angles. That's all I confirmed, that's all I said in regard to that. There was no concrete plans, there was no timetable to what was said about it.

"From the beginning in July [when Bryant was charged with felony sexual assault] until Kobe declared in September what he wanted to do to us personally, Mitch [Kupchak] and I talked about the variety of things that we may have to consider during the course of the summer. I'm saying we talked about all those things between July and when Kobe declared himself that that's what he wanted to do."

Jackson indicated that this was a pre-season discussion, while Kupchak said there have been ongoing talks about how to handle Bryant's situation, as well as continuous talks with Bryant's representatives about the logistics of his hearings in the midst of the 82-game schedule.

Bryant himself said he thought about sitting out the season, but once he was in he was in. It's clear how much he has relished playing.

"Our position has been if he wanted time off he would have to come to us and tell us," Kupchak said. "We've always said we want to be flexible."