Kobe Bryant talked with Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss on Thursday.

"I talked with Kobe this morning and assured him that I share his frustration and, more importantly, I assured him that we will continue to pursue every avenue possible to improve our team with him as the cornerstone," Buss said in a statement released by the team. "I told him that we will keep him apprised of our progress and we agreed that we will talk again in the very near future."

On Wednesday, Jerry West told columnist Doug Krikorian that he is "absolutely" not going to be a Lakers executive again.

Kobe Bryant has expressed interest in bringing back West, who help build four NBA champions as general manager with the Lakers including one with Bryant in 2000.

Krikorian, of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, spoke to West, the retiring general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies, after Bryant demanded the Lakers trade him.

"I'm absolutely not going back to the Lakers," West said firmly. "I'm 69 years old. I've been at this long enough. It's time for me to step permanently to the sidelines."

West called Bryant's demand "surprising," but refused to speculate on the outcome.

"I have no idea what's going on with the Lakers," he said.

Peter Vescey is reporting that the Lakers and Pacers have laid the groundwork for a deal to send Jermaine O'Neal to Los Angeles.

Within the last week, the Lakers inquired about O'Neal and were told he is available.  According to Vescey, the Pacers also confirmed that the Lakers have enough assets to make a deal work.  But no negotiations have been undertaken between the two sides, which would seem to cast doubt on the credibility of the entire report to begin with.

Lamar Odom would have to be the principal player heading back to Indiana.  Center Andrew Bynum is another likely piece in such a deal.

After saying that he wanted to be traded on ESPN Radio early Wednesday, and then seemingly retracting that demand later in the day, Kobe Bryant spoke to The Los Angeles Times late in the afternoon Wednesday and said he still wanted off the Lakers.

At 5:27 PM, Bryant affirmed his first position as stated on the air Wednesday morning.

"Nothing's changed," Bryant said. "It's just a matter of I don't want to go no place else. I don't have much of a choice. When things like this go down, you just sit back. What can I do? It's like a broken record."

When asked if he still wanted to be traded, Bryant reportedly expressed no hesitation or doubt in quickly answering "Yes."

The Mavericks' president of basketball operations, Donnie Nelson, said he sees virtually no scenario that would land the Los Angeles Lakers' star in a Dallas uniform.

"There's nothing there with us," Nelson said from Orlando, Fla., where he and almost all of the other NBA's executives are at the pre-draft camp. "We're not going to do anything crazy."

Kobe Bryant spoke with coach Phil Jackson and backed off his midday trade request made on the Stephen A. Smith radio show.

"I don't want to go anywhere, this is my team," Bryant told KLAC radio. "I love it here. I called Phil, man, he and I talked, it was an emotional conversation, but he just said, 'You know what, Kobe? Let us try to figure this thing out.'

"Phil is a guy I lean on a lot."

Bryant told KLAC that his agent had contacted general manager Mitch Kupchak early Wednesday.

Kobe Bryant has a trade kicker in his contract that will add $9.5 million to his total contract value, a cost to be absorbed by any team that acquires him.

The money would be paid like a signing bonus and would be spread out over several seasons toward the new team's salary cap. The Lakers had to pay a similar fee to Lamar Odom when they acquired him from Miami three years ago, paying him about $8 million.

The Lakers, meanwhile, are waiting to hear from Bryant.

"We are aware of the media reports," Lakers owner Jerry Buss said in a statement. "However, Kobe has not told us directly that he wants to be traded. We have made it very clear that we are building our team around Kobe and that we intend for him to be a Laker his entire career. We will speak directly to Kobe and until we do that, we will not comment publicly about this."

Kobe Bryant was furious with the Lakers after reading that a "team source" intimated in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times that he was the reason Shaquille O'Neal was traded.

The Lakers' owner, Jerry Buss, "called a meeting with me after he spoke with Jim Gray [of ESPN] to talk with him about Shaq's future in the middle of the 2004 season," Bryant said yesterday.

"He met with me at the Four Seasons Hotel here across from Fashion Island, which is now the Island Hotel," Bryant said. "I went up to his penthouse suite. [Buss] looks me dead in the face and says: 'Kobe, I am not going to re-sign Shaq. I am not about to pay him $30 million a year or $80 million over three years. No way in hell. I feel like he's getting older. His body is breaking down, and I don't want to pay that money to him when I can get value for him right now rather than wait. This is my decision. It's independent of you. My mind is made up. It doesn't matter to me what you do in free agency because I do not want to pay [Shaq], period.' "

"Dr. Buss said that," Bryant said. "And I haven't said anything for years because I've always felt like folks were just looking to create controversy. Now I know. I realize what extent [the Lakers] will go to, to cover themselves."

"I believe Kobe 100 percent," said O'Neal, reached yesterday while in Los Angeles on business. "Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind Kobe is telling the truth. I believe him a thousand percent. I would have respected Dr. Buss more as a man if he would have told me that himself, because I know he said it. But he didn't [tell me]. He never said a damn word to me."

On Wednesday, Kobe Bryant tells Stephen A. Smith on 1050 ESPN Radio in New York that he wants to be traded from the Lakers -- and that there's nothing the Lakers can do to change his mind.

"I would like to be traded, yeah," said Bryant. "Tough as it is to come to that conclusion there's no other alternative, you know?"

Bryant was asked if there was anything the Lakers could do to change his mind.

"No," Bryant said. "I just want them to do the right thing."

Bryant was left "beyond furious" by a report in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times that read, "as a Lakers insider notes, it was Bryant's insistence on getting away from Shaquille O'Neal that got them in this mess."

Kobe Bryant said he believes the Lakers misled him.

The Lakers' public meltdown took another turn Tuesday when a seething Bryant called the team's front office "a mess," repeatedly said that he had "trust issues" with management, issues he isn't certain can ever be resolved, and left open the possibility of a trade.

Bryant accused the Lakers of deceiving him about their plans to undergo long-term rebuilding in the post-Shaquille O'Neal era and also bristled at the oft-expressed belief that he forced the Lakers to trade O'Neal.

"I get up at 4:30 (a.m.) and I get on the court and work on nothing but defense," Bryant said in an interview with 570-AM. "My focus has been all about getting this team to the next level. Now, the tone has switched now. The tone has switched. Because now I've got serious trust issues."