Kobe Bryant will not be available in the Lakers' opening night game versus the Phoenix Suns.

He made an announcement on his website.

"The excitement of tonight was beginning to cloud my judgment of playing, I want to play, BUT I am not there yet," wrote Bryant. "I am rounding 3rd base and will be home SOON."

Devin Green appeared in 27 games for the Lakers last season, but it looks like he won't appear in any this year, as he was waived on Monday.

The club elected to keep Aaron McKie instead of Green.

When Kobe Bryant was asked how much he trusted his surgically repaired right knee, he replied "not much."

"It's difficult turning the corner, being able to trust it, to be able to pivot and explode off it," he said Sunday. "It's still a little sore.

"You kind of put your foot in the water to see if it's cold, like trying to turn the corner but not really trying to turn the corner and then seeing what that feels like," he said. "If it's like, that felt OK, so next time I can turn it a little sharper, a little quicker. Just trying to gauge it like that."

Second-year forward Devin Green is expected to be waived on Monday by the Lakers, in order to get their roster down to 15 players by the league-mandated deadline.

Green made the team last season as an undrafted rookie from Hampton.

On a day of conflicting gauges on Kobe Bryant's health, the Lakers guard said Saturday he didn't know if he would play in Tuesday's season opener against Phoenix.

Then, 10 minutes later, Phil Jackson revealed he would be healthy enough to coach against Phoenix ... and that Bryant had delivered a bit of news to him.

"He says he's going to play on Tuesday," Jackson said. "I'm sure that he'll make the correct decision. He came off the floor [Saturday] and he was sore, but he was on the court for a good hour and a half before he came off."

The Lakers exercised options on Sasha Vujacic and Andrew Bynum on Friday.

Vujacic was the 27th overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft. He averaged 2.9 points and 1.5 assists in 35 games as a rookie, and 3.9 points and 1.7 assists while playing in all 82 games last season.

Bynum, who turned 19 Friday, was the 10th overall selection in the 2005 draft. He averaged 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds in 46 games last season.

The Lakers and Brian Cook are heading down a road that likely won't include a contract extension this month.

"My guess is that we probably won't get something done," Cook's agent, Mark Bartelstein said in a phone interview.

"I'm not disappointed in how things have gone," said Cook, who had 13 points in the Lakers' 126-108 exhibition loss on Thursday. "I want to be here with the Lakers. But no matter what happens, I'll be good."

Kobe Bryant did not suit up for the exhibition finale Thursday against Denver and was called "questionable to doubtful" by a team official for Tuesday's season opener against Phoenix.

He has said he wants to play, but whether his knee will be fully recovered from off-season surgery is another question.

"I don't know. We'll see," Bryant said Thursday. "I worked out really, really hard [Thursday]. We'll see how it feels in the morning. This is the hardest workout I had. I ran about an hour straight, just doing line drills and things like that. Then I went and shot the ball. It was a little sore afterwards, a little sore now, but nothing major. The big thing is always the next day."

The Lakers aren't pressing him to play in the opener, or the next day against Golden State, keeping in mind the 82-game season.

"We as an organization, we're not going to gamble and try to bring him back too early," assistant coach Kurt Rambis said. "If he feels like that's all the time that he needs and it responds well, and he goes out there and stresses it the way that it needs to be stressed to handle the rigors of playing an NBA game, and it doesn't bother him the following day, he can make that decision."

The Los Angeles Lakers requested waivers Thursday on guards Von Wafer and J.R. Pinnock, leaving them with 16 players on their roster.

Wafer averaged 1.3 points in 17 games last season after being selected in the second round of the NBA draft with the 39th overall pick. He played in only one preseason game this month before sitting out the rest of the games with a bruised left heel.

The Dallas Mavericks made Pinnock the 58th pick in last June's NBA draft, and traded him to the Lakers for a second-round draft pick next year. He averaged 14.5 points and 5.3 rebounds for George Washington last season, and 1.8 points and 2.0 rebounds in seven preseason games.

The Lakers must make one more cut by Monday -- a day before they open the season against Phoenix.

Because of injuries to Chris Mihm (offseason right ankle surgery) and Kwame Brown (shoulder), Andrew Bynum will start at center for the Los Angeles Lakers.

"As far as practice, I'm really comfortable," he said. "As far as in-game goes, the more minutes the more comfortable I become. I think I've been doing better and better in every preseason game so hopefully, I can just keep that up with the minutes I get in the season."