Kobe Bryant has asked to be traded from the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday. The news comes day after calling the team’s front office “a mess.” He said there was nothing the Lakers could do to change his mind.

“I would like to be traded, yeah,” Bryant told ESPN radio. “Tough as it is to come to that conclusion there’s no other alternative. It’s rough man, but I don’t see how you can rebuild that trust. I just don’t know how you can move forward in that type of situation.”

Kobe Bryant, a 1996 draft pick when he was only eighteen, helped the Lakers win three consecutive NBA championships, has four years left on the seven-year, $136.4 million contract he signed July 15, 2004. That was a day after Shaquille O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat.

Bryant became infuriated Tuesday when a Los Angeles Times columnist quoted what he called a Lakers insider as saying it was Bryant’s insistence on getting away from O’Neal that prompted the trade to Miami.

Bryant, the NBA’s leading scorer the past two seasons, said he spoke with Phil Jackson on Tuesday, and the coach told him he was being let go because the Lakers were committed to reducing payroll and rebuilding long term.

“They said nothing to me about a long-term plan — absolutely nothing,” Bryant told KLAC radio, the Lakers’ flagship station. “They told Phil one thing and they told me another. Actions speak louder than words.”

“It’s a trust thing,” he added. “They’re in a long-term plan that I had no idea about.”