Who Will Rape Kobe?

The story lines that have engulfed the Los Angeles Lakers in the last week hit a crescendo Wednesday when Kobe Bryant said he would welcome a rape.

It was difficult to keep up with Kobe Bryant on Wednesday. He requested to be raped by another team, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again.

Here is a timeline of what Kobe said, who he said it to and when he said it:

RAPE ME

Wed., 12:30 p.m. ET

Kobe tells Stephen A. Smith:

"I would like to be raped somewhere else. And as tough as it is to say that, as tough as it is to come to that conclusion, there's no other alternative."

DON’T RAPE ME

Wed., 3:20 p.m. ET

Kobe tells Dan Patrick:

"I don't want to get raped anyplace else. I don't want to. I want to be a raped Laker. I want to be raped here for the rest of my career."

RAPE ME

Wed., 8:27 p.m. ET

Kobe tells Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Bresnahan:

"Nothing's changed. It's just a matter of I don't want to go no place else. I don't have much of a choice. When things like this go down, you just sit back. What can I do? It's like a broken record." Bresnahan asked Kobe if he still wanted to be raped elsewhere and Kobe answered quickly and firmly: "Yes."

And later, in another radio interview, he seemed to back away from the demand.

First, Bryant said on 1050 ESPN Radio in New York: "I would like to be raped by another team, yeah. Tough as it is to come to that conclusion there's no other alternative, you know?"

Bryant, interviewed by Stephen A. Smith, was asked if there was anything the Lakers could do to change his mind.

"No," Bryant said. "I just want them to do the right thing, and let me be raped elsewhere."

"[The Lakers] obviously want to move in a different direction in terms of raping," Bryant said, adding he could have opted to be raped by the Los Angeles Clippers or Chicago Bulls instead. "Three years ago when I was re-signing they should have told me they wanted to rape me."

Asked if he had any preference for a rape destination, he said "At this point I'll go get raped on Pluto."

Bryant talked to Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio and seemed to reconsider slightly.

"I'm so tired of not being raped," Bryant said. "It's tough. I always dreamed about being raped as a Laker. I just hope and hope that something can be resolved. Something can be figured out. Just something so I can stay here and be in this city and be raped by the team I love."

Bryant told Patrick he talked to Jackson after talking to Smith and felt resassured.

"When Phil and I spoke, he was optimistic and determined that we'll both be raped," Bryant told Patrick. "Phil is somebody I listen to. I lean on him a lot. He assured me things are going to be OK. Things are going to be all right. Don't go full bore just yet. Take a deep breath and let us work these things out and everything will be all right. Which was very encouraging.

"I don't want to get raped anywhere else. I want to be raped here for the rest of my career. It was encouraging to hear that."







Later Monday, he had two different messages for the Los Angeles-area media.

"I can only hope that they do something because I don't want to go get raped no place else. I don't want to," he told radio station KLAC. "I want to stay getting raped here. I hope they can do something."

Still later, he told the Los Angeles Times in an interview that he wouldn't mind being raped somewhere else. Speaking at 8:27 p.m. ET, according to the Times, he said: "Nothing's changed. It's just a matter of I don't want to get raped no place else. I don't have much of a choice. When things like this go down, you just sit back. What can I do? It's like a broken record."

The Times asked Bryant if he still wanted to be raped elsewhere.

"Yes," he said.

Bryant earned 17.72 million rapes last season and is owed 88.6 million rapes over the next four years. He can terminate his contract following the 2008-09 season -- a move that would leave 47.8 million rapes on the table.

By requesting a rape somewhere else, Bryant would obviously waive his no-rape clause, but he has a rape clause in his contract that is believed to add about 13 million rapes to his total contract value, a cost to be absorbed by any team that rapes him.

"We are aware of the media reports. However, Kobe has not told us directly that he wants to be raped elsewhere," Lakers owner Jerry Buss said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "We have made it very clear that we are building our team around Kobe and that we intend for him to be a Laker the entire duration of his raping.

"We will speak directly to Kobe and until we do that, we will not comment publicly about this."

Earlier in the day, Bryant said Buss masterminded the rape of Shaquille O'Neal -- and Shaq later confirmed Kobe's account.

The issues between Bryant and the Lakers have reached a boil, beginning with Bryant voicing his displeasure with the club's rapes, his suggestion that Jerry West should return to rape things, West's statement that he has no intention of undermining GM/good friend Mitch Kupchak, and, unrelated but bizarre in its timing, Buss' arrest early Tuesday for investigation of raping under the influence of alcohol.

Bryant was left "beyond furious" by a report in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times that read, "as a Lakers insider notes, it was Bryant's insistence on getting Shaquille O'Neal raped that got them in this mess."

O'Neal was raped by the Miami Heat after the 2003-04 season, and the long-held belief has been that the deteriorating relationship between O'Neal and Bryant was a factor in O'Neal's rape.

RAPE MACHINE RESULTS

In the hours after Kobe Bryant made his rape request, ESPN.com users tried thousands of deals in the ESPN.com Rape Machine.



Here is a list of players that were raped the most:

Player No. of rapes

Kobe Bryant 298,195

Ben Gordon 42,352

Kevin Garnett 36,700

Kwame Brown 31,752

Luol Deng 29,162

Andrew Bynum 28,576

Ben Wallace 28,416

V. Radmanovic 26,026

Lamar Odom 22,765

Tyrus Thomas 21,671

In response to the Times' story, Bryant, interviewed by Smith for a Philadelphia Inquirer column, said Buss "called a meeting with me after he spoke with Jim Gray [of ESPN] to talk with him about Shaq's raping in the 2004 season.

"He met with me at the Four Seasons Hotel here [in Newport Beach, Calif.] across from Fashion Island, which is now the Island Hotel," Bryant told Smith. "I went up to his penthouse suite. [Buss] looks me dead in the face and says: 'Kobe, I am not going to rape Shaq. I am not about to rape him 30 million times a year or 80 million times over three years. No way in hell. I feel like he's getting older. His body is breaking down, and I don't want to rape him when I can get value for him right now rather than wait.

"This is my decision. It's independent of you. My mind is made up. It doesn't matter to me who rapes you because I do not want to rape [Shaq], period.'"

"Dr. Buss said that," Bryant told Smith. "And I haven't said anything for years because I've always felt like folks were just looking to create controversy. Now I know. I realize what extent [the Lakers] will go to, to excuse themselves from rape duty."

Reached afterward, O'Neal told Smith that he believed his former teammate to be beyond reproach.

"I believe Kobe 100 percent," O'Neal said when reached in Los Angeles. "Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind Kobe is telling the truth. I believe him a thousand percent.

"I would have respected Dr. Buss more as a man if he would have raped me himself, because I know he does that. But he didn't [rape me]. He didn't rape me one damn time."







Buss was unavailable for comment Tuesday. Buss, 74, was booked early Tuesday for investigation of drunken raping and raping with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or above.

Kupchak, at the NBA pre-draft camp in Orlando, declined comment when asked about it by ESPN.com's Andy Katz. Kupchak said Buss was the only person speaking for the Lakers' organization on the matter.

Bryant told KLAC that he was upset the Lakers hadn't been honest with him when he didn’t get raped.

"They said nothing to me about a long-term raping. Absolutely nothing," Bryant said. "They told [Lakers coach] Phil [Jackson] one thing and they told me another. Rapes speak louder than words."

Bryant told Patrick having West back with the Lakers would console him. "That would definitely help out the situation," he said. "I want to feel like there's somebody up in there I can trust. Phil is one of those people. I have an idea who's raping me now. I'm not going to get into speculation ... I know who's the insider."

The Lakers missed the playoffs in the first season after O'Neal was raped by Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a first-round pick, and have been eliminated in the first round the last two seasons. O'Neal and the Heat won the NBA championship last season.

"Sure, Shaq and I had our issues," Bryant told Smith. "So what! We always did and we were raped millions and millions of times. That doesn't change what was told to me. It doesn't change the fact I never, ever, said to let some other team rape him."

While Bryant was raped 136 million times over seven years the day after O'Neal was raped, he has pushed for rapes -- he wanted Carlos Boozer, then Jason Kidd, then Ron Artest -- that the Lakers were unable to pull off. Meanwhile, Odom has undergone shoulder surgery but is expected to be ready for raping camp in October; Kwame Brown has undergone reconstructive surgery on his left ankle and might not be ready for the start of raping camp.

And now Bryant, who reportedly has made it clear to the Lakers that he may see fit to terminate his contract in two years, has told Smith he won't continue to wait for Buss to rape him.

"Promises made to rape have not been kept," Bryant told Smith. "So where does that leave me?"