Delivering Kevin Durant Could Be Kobe Bryant's Final Gift to Los Angeles Lakers

Kobe Bryant is winding his way through the end stages of a brilliant career, competing as fiercely as his 36-year-old body will allow. Delivering Kevin Durant to the Los Angeles Lakers could be a bittersweet parting gift.

Bryant’s current two-year contract lasts through the 2015-16 season. Durant’s contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder will expire after that season as well.

There is certainly no guarantee that the NBA’s reigning Most Valuable Player will leave the organization that drafted him at No. 2 overall in 2007, and an even slimmer chance that he would join forces with the struggling Lakers as things stand now.

But recent comments spoke volumes for his admiration for a basketball legend and began fanning the free-agent flames among Lakers fans desperate for a spark.

Per Sam Amick of USA Today Sports, Durant unequivocally slammed the idea that other players are turned off by the idea of playing with Bryant, and he went as far as to embrace the idea of playing alongside Kobe: 

"

I want to play with a winner every single night, especially somebody who wants to win that bad, who works that hard, who demands a lot, who raises up your level. I'd want to play with a guy like that every day. ... (His style) may make people uncomfortable, how he acts and just how he approaches the game, but I love that type of stuff. I think (the accusation) is BS.

"

And if there was any room for doubt after that, Durant quickly dispelled it, launching into what specifically he admired about the longtime Lakers leader:

"

Just his work ethic, just his demeanor man. He doesn't mind being an (expletive), and he comes to work man. He's intense. He demands a lot out of his teammates, and I've seen that just playing alongside him in the Olympics (in 2012). He demands a lot out of everybody. He makes them better. Everybody out on the court. You've got to respect that. As a player, I study guys like that.

"

Of course, even the slightest tantalizing thought of one of today’s elite superstars joining the Purple and Gold paints the picture of a different sunset ride off to glory than what currently awaits Bryant.

This team is not constructed to compete at a high level in the ultra-competitive Western Conference right now. And that leaves the Mamba raging futilely, shooting his team in and out of games while piling up new statistical records in the process.

But even before Durant made his feelings known, the idea of Bryant continuing beyond his current contract had been broached.

Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News relayed the hopefulness of Lakers coach Byron Scott: “If we put something together that excites him, we’ll have a real good chance of him saying he’ll play another year and give it another shot. That’s what we plan to do.”

Bryant's response, also per Medina, was tepid: “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to be coy about it. I don’t know what to tell you. Right now I’d say no. But it doesn’t matter. Would that change a year from now or something like that?”

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has also added some waffling of his own. When David Aldridge for NBA.com raised the subject, the GM said: “All indications are, to me, from him, that this (two-year contract) is going to be it.”

But a week later, on Colin Cowherd’s The Herd on ESPN Radio, Kupchak was offering a more nuanced assessment:

"If he’s playing at a high level and we were able to put our team together with some vision, in other words, have cap space to acquire players that help us going forward and help us win right away, I don’t know why we would not consider bringing Kobe back."

As in Bryant and Durant, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the past and the present. 

Ned Dishman/Getty Images

Could the Lakers retain Bryant and still pay a max contract to Durant? In a word, yes. As it currently stands, the team’s only financial commitments for the 2016-17 season are Nick Young for $5,443,918, and an option on Julius Randle for $3,267,120, which is almost undoubtedly an assurance to be exercised.

In order to build a competitive roster around Durant, however, Bryant would have to be willing to take a reduction from next year’s league-high salary of $25 million. That would be a no-brainer in exchange for an encore for the ages.

The idea of a Mamba swan song with a prime-time Durant by his side is music to the ears of some, but unnecessary to others who are ready to turn the page and move ahead to a new chapter in Los Angeles.

Durant has dealt with a fractured foot this season, as well as a more recent ankle sprain. Yet, those issues notwithstanding, the 6’9” swingman has enjoyed a relatively injury-free career.

There is no reason to doubt that in two years, at age 28, Durantula would still be as gifted, fluid and deadly as any player in the NBA. A soft-spoken action hero, he has a habit of putting games on his back in clutch situations and delivering.

Why would L.A. need to pair a never-quit player at his peak with a fading superstar looking to re-sign for a 21st season?

For the same reasons Durant recently voiced—a warrior’s mentality and an insatiable thirst for winning. And yes, five championship rings do still count for something, even when skeptics sometimes count the Laker legend out.

There will be plenty of other teams vying for Durant’s services in 2016, however, including the Washington Wizards.

The future NBA star grew up in the small community of Seat Pleasant, Maryland, in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Last summer, in an interview with Amick, Durant spoke about the pull back to a familial place:

"I go home, and everybody asks me. Man, it's crazy. Like little kids, 4 years old, 'You coming to the Wizards?' Man, (expletive), how do you know about this? At 4 years old, I didn't even know what basketball players were. How do you know about free agency?"

One of the modern giants of the game will have a wealth of choices when free agency eventually rolls along. He can stay loyal to the Thunder and his longtime running partner, Russell Westbrook. Or, he can return home to the place where roots run deep.

He could also take a chance with any number of other cash-rich contenders.

Or he could enter the den of a lion in winter, and still one of the game’s fiercest competitors.

Bryant may be unnecessarily headstrong at times, but his myopic intensity also has much to do with the knowledge that this current Lakers roster is simply not built to win.

With Durant and a strong supporting cast, things would be different. And remember, Durant didn't say he wanted to play for the Lakers—he said he would want to play with Bryant.

But that may be a pipe dream, because time is the ultimate avenger.

After coming back from a fractured knee, which followed a ruptured Achilles tendon, Bryant is heading deep into the unknown, summoning every shred of strength he has left to continue his relentless pump-fakery, jab-stepping, trash-talking and shot-launching.

Nobody knows how long he has left—not his coach, his GM or himself.

But Durant has expressed an interest.

And if Bryant can recruit his successor as a parting gift, he'll usher in a new era of Lakers supremacy.