Los Angeles Lakers star player Kobe Bryant has requested a trade from the team. Then he back-peddled from the request.

“I would like to be traded, yeah. Tough as it is to come to that conclusion, there’s no other alternative. It’s rough, man, but I don’t see how you can rebuild that trust. I just don’t know how you can move forward in that type of situation.”

He said this on an interview with ESPN radio. However, just three hours later in an interview with Lakers flagship station KLAC radio he made completely contradictory comments.

“I don’t want to go anywhere, this is my team,” said Bryant. “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.”

Kobe Bryant is not on the dominant Lakers team of old. He’s on a Lakers team without a Shaquille O’Neal to lean on. He must lead this team if they’ll be victorious. This year in the playoffs he could not carry the team past the first round against the Phoenix Suns. Kobe averaged 32 points in that series. The second best scorer in that series was Lamar Odom averaging 19 points. Kobe was frustrated the entire series. Kobe can either opt to stay a Laker and be a captain of this team, or look to go to another team where he’s not so much in the spotlight. This can heavily affect his career reputation as a leader or a follower.