Ric Bucher of ESPN was on SportsCenter today and reported this bombshell:

Bucher seemed strongly confident that Phil would be returning to LA. He said contrary to what people are saying, Phil believes he could make it work with Kobe. Dan Patrick seemed surprised by this.

He dismissed New York as a "pretender" because he said Phil would never work under Thomas and they don't have the personnel to run the triangle.

Minny and Cleveland also dismissed for not being equiped to run the tri. Phil said that as great as LeBron is, he is not yet ready to lead the team to a championship. Also said that Minny's owner is not willing to shell out the money necessary to net Phil.

Named the figure Phil is seeking to be between 7-10mill. He also would love to get ownership.

The funny part was when Bucher shared that Jeanie had already said to him something along the lines of "well, you know there is a way you could get ownership...(hint hint)"

Phil has allready met with management and regularly watches Laker games. He has had meetings with Buss and Kupchack, and the Lakers mentioned that Phil was at the top of their lists. Even Phil's agent says the Lakers are a decent probability.

Finally, Phil is supposed to meet with Bryant this week.

THIS IS CRAZY!!! (Is there any way to merge all the Phil threads into one?)

Yeah i heard him say that it is very likely if he comes back that he'll go with the Lakers or if not then Knicks.