Howard Beck of the L.A. Daily News reports that Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will likely opt out of his contract and become a free agent in the summer of 2004.

"That's the first I've heard of it," general manager Mitch Kupchak said Sunday before the Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves opened their first-round playoff series. "I don't know exactly what it means, other than somebody would like to explore options and have options."

Last summer, the Lakers offered Bryant a three-year, $54.8 million dollar contract extension, but Bryant declined.

"Our feeling is Kobe's our future. A young player who's clearly at the top of his game and is only going to get better and better and better," Kupchak said. "So any remote possibility that he wouldn't be with us is not the kind of thought that we like to endure.

"But we said all along, and I think he would agree, he's very happy in L.A. This is the place where I think he wants to be. And we'll do everything we can do to keep him. And that's all you can do. I think all those things bode well for us. But if we had our druthers, obviously extending the contract a year ago, that's what we'd like to do."

There is speculation as to why Bryant may choose to opt out. The first, and most popular theory, being that the NBA's collective bargaining agreement is set to end in 2004 or 2005 and he wants to see if the maximum available contract goes higher. However, an NBA source who knows Bryant well says that Bryant wants to see what direction the Lakers will take and wants to be certain the Lakers will remain an elite team.