Bryant Keeps Options Open

Early Wednesday afternoon here, a two-hour drive from Eagle, Colo., Kobe Bryant restated his plan for the next several months.

“As I’ve been saying,” he said, “at the end of the season I’m really going to sit down and evaluate every option, break down every team. Denver is one of them.”

He added, “I’ll make a decision then.”

To review:

On Feb. 14, Bryant told The Times, “I want to be a Laker, I want to be here forever, the option gives me the opportunity to be here for a longer period of time.”

On Sunday, Laker owner Jerry Buss said he expected Bryant to be “a Laker for life,” and pledged the maximum contract allowed by the collective bargaining agreement, nearly $142 million over seven years.

On Wednesday, Bryant stood off to the side of the court at Pepsi Center and concluded, “At the end of the season, that’s when I’m going to sit down and think about it.”

Like a handful of organizations, the Nuggets should have enough room under the salary cap to make a respectable bid for Bryant, should he opt out of his contract and become a free agent, as he said he would. They cannot match a Laker offer in term or payout, but Bryant might consider it a small price for leaving Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson.

This week, Nugget General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe had asked fans to go easy on Bryant, and by Wednesday morning word had reached Bryant.

“I appreciate that,” he said. “I appreciate his support. That is something that he didn’t have to do, but he did it. That shows a lot of support on his part. I really appreciate that. It goes a long way with me.”

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The Lakers and O’Neal are $9.5 million apart in their negotiations to extend O’Neal’s contract by two seasons, about where they’ve been for four months.

On Wednesday, O’Neal blamed the sluggish negotiations on General Manager Mitch Kupchak. O’Neal has insisted on credit for recruiting Gary Payton and Karl Malone to the Lakers, on Wednesday calling them “my real general manager skills.”

“The general manager we have needs to take notes from me,” he said. “It’s a fact. Because if I was general manager, with a team like this, there’d be no problems. No problems with the Diesel, no problems with the coach, no problems with the Kobester, no problems with the owner.”

The Lakers have offered Bryant the maximum extension and will offer him a maximum deal in free agency. And, it appears to be the owner, Buss, who is less than eager to pay O’Neal and Jackson what they’ve asked.

“He’s the general manager,” O’Neal said. “He’s supposed to be the general that manages. That’s what the term ‘general manager’ means.... Just write what I said. If I was the GM, there wouldn’t be no problems. None whatsoever.”

O’Neal still misses Jerry West.

“Jerry and upstairs had a problem,” he said of the issues that led to West’s retirement nearly four years ago. “Jerry never had a problem with the personnel. Jerry had a problem with the personnel, he took care of it. Jerry had a problem with the players, he took care of it.”

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The Lakers and Sacramento Kings play tonight for the second time, the Lakers without Malone and the Kings without Chris Webber or Brad Miller.

Webber has yet to play this season. After recovering from knee surgery, Webber was suspended eight games for lying to a grand jury and violating the league’s drug policy; he can play Tuesday against the Clippers. Miller has a sprained foot, suffered in the All-Star game.

“They’re in our sights,” Jackson said of the Kings. “[For instance,] we’re aware the league has allowed Webber to be suspended for [eight] games instead of having to show up and then be suspended. And we wonder why those things happen.”

He grinned. The Kings knew Webber would be suspended by the league as soon as he was able to play.

The series should get more interesting as the teams get healthy, and the Kings and Lakers play twice in the season’s final three weeks.

“The last two will be more important,” Rick Fox said. “But we’re always measuring ourselves against teams like Sacramento.”