Kobe not only demanding a trade, but also apparently demanding that Luol Deng not be part of any deal with Chicago is bordering on the lunatic. There’s no way Kobe can manipulate the situation to guarantee that he lines up on a championship team. But the current Bulls frontcourt includes Ben Wallace, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, and Andres Nocioni plus some other backup types. That’s more guys than the team needs to win games if they can upgrade from Ben Gordon to Kobe Bryant at the two.
Indeed, in a lot of ways a Gordon & Deng for Kobe (plus somehow the salaries need to match) trade would result in the ideal situation for him because the resulting team, while definitely in contention, would also be a squad where it made perfect sense for Kobe to take a ridiculously high proportion of the shots.