Bryant to Make TNT Appearance

Kobe Bryant will appear as a guest analyst on Wednesday night’s TNT playoff doubleheader, a public follow-up to his text-message battle with TNT analyst Charles Barkley.

Bryant, who will provide in-studio analysis, was irritated when Barkley called him “very selfish” in the wake of the Lakers’ 121-90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs.

Bryant scored 24 points but had only one in the second half. He missed all three of his shots in the last half.

“I think he stopped shooting so he could say, ‘Those guys didn’t help me,’ ” Barkley said at the time.

Barkley said he received 20 text messages from Bryant protesting his opinion.

-- Mike Bresnahan

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Although the New York Knicks still declined to comment, Coach Larry Brown’s agent said the team told him to ignore newspaper reports that the team is considering a buyout of the final four years and $40-plus million of the coach’s contract,

“I spoke to Isiah Thomas earlier this afternoon and he categorically denied that there’s any substances to what was in the paper,” agent Joe Glass told the Associated Press.

Thomas, the Knicks’ president, is reportedly the top candidate to replace Brown.

Brown, 65, was hired last July after an acrimonious departure from the Detroit Pistons.

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Commissioner David Stern discussed a new seeding system aimed at fixing the flaw the Dallas Mavericks exposed this season. Dallas won 60 games but was seeded fourth behind the three division winners despite a better record, leading to their second-round meeting with the San Antonio Spurs despite the teams’ having the two best records in the Western Conference.

Under the proposal, the top four seeded teams would be slotted by record among the three division winners and the team with the next-best record. Had that existed this season, the Spurs still would have been No. 1, but the Mavericks would have been No. 2. And they couldn’t have met until the conference finals. The plan must be approved by the competition committee.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers will be in St. Louis today to attend the funeral of Justin Hughes, the 20-year-old brother of guard Larry Hughes. Justin Hughes, who died last week, was born with a heart defect and had a transplant in 1997.