Lakers' owner Jerry Buss said this past week for the first time that he is open to listening to trade offers for Kobe Bryant, his disgruntled superstar who can opt out of his contract this summer. If the Lakers start poorly or Bryant starts to vent publicly about his desire to leave L.A. that could hasten the timetable for his departure.

Although Knicks president Isiah Thomas wouldn't talk after practice Saturday about Buss' comments or the Knicks' long-held interest in Bryant, he did say, "We're in the business to put together the best basketball team we can, and we're always trying to get better."

While Bryant is exactly what the Knicks desperately need, they're in the same position as when Shaq went on the market in 2004. If the time comes, the Lakers will want to ship Bryant to the East, as they did with Shaq, but New York doesn't have the goods to swing the deal.

"If they can't get a superstar back, the Lakers are going to want some very good young players, at the least," said one Eastern Conference executive. "So what would they possibly want off the Knicks' roster for one of the top three players in the NBA?"

"You have to get comparable value when you make a trade," Buss said in Hawaii during his team's training camp. "It's very hard to trade somebody like (Bryant) because people who have enough material to make it worthwhile are usually contenders and they don't want to make the trade."