The Toronto Raptors should trade Chris Bosh. Or Andrea Bargnani as well as you should check out a Toronto Raptors game. There is two ways to go and see a Raptors game. You can purchase Cheap Raptors tickets or you can go to the official Raptors site and purchase Toronto Raptors tickets. Both ways will insure you get the best tickets for the best price.

They should rummage around their spare-parts locker, package some names with one of their two talented big men and hope it adds up to disaffected Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant.

It's a long shot, but so is trying to be the one team among 30 National Basketball Association franchises to finish the season as the champion.

That it's even a discussion point - and admittedly a fairly far-out one - stems from Kobe Bryant's on-again, off-again, on-again trade request that rang out loud and clear across the NBA the past two days.

You know that Raptors president Bryan Colangelo heard it. You might guess that it's echoing still, a big bee in his bonnet.

And, well, you'd guess wrong. Reached for comment yesterday while assessing prospects at the NBA's Orlando predraft camp, Colangelo laughed off the suggestion. One can only presume he was also gently hitting himself in the head with his Blackberry, uttering silent curses about having to do his job in an era when any yokel can plug a few names into the ESPN.com Trade Machine (it's fun, try it) and come out with a deal that meets the NBA salary-cap test, if not the test of common sense.

Fine. So Colangelo doesn't want to get in the (supposed) bidding for Kobe Bryant. We say why not? The Raptors do need more scoring from the wing. Kobe Bryant's league-leading 31.8 points a game would seem to qualify.

Could it happen? Only as long as Bosh or Bargnani is part of the conversation. And from the Los Angeles Lakers' point of view, probably both, but that would leave Kobe Bryant no one to play with, so we'll nix that now.

In any case, Bosh would give the Los Angeles Lakers an all-NBA big man with face-up skills who is only 23 years old.

The problem is that Bosh is what the NBA's collective labour agreement defines as base-year compensation player, which - without getting overly technical - makes him almost untradable.

Unless, of course, you are writing for a newspaper.

Then you could try this deal: Chris Bosh, Rasho Nesterovic, Joey Graham and Jose Calderon for Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Sasha Vujacic. Technically, the deal satisfies league rules calling for the salaries being exchanged to be within 125 per cent of each other, plus or minus $100,000 (U.S.).

The Los Angeles Lakers would get Bosh and Jose Calderon - a young star and a budding one, not to mention Graham, who helped hold Kobe Bryant under 82 points in Los Angeles the season before last, don't forget.

It's cap-friendly too, given that Calderon, Graham and Nesterovic all come off the books at the end of the 2008-09 season.

The Raptors would team Kobe Bryant with Bargnani and hope the Italian rookie blossoms into some kind of Dirk Nowitzki-Pau Gasol hybrid sooner rather than later.

Of course, the ideal for the Raptors would be to hang on to Bosh. Teaming him with Kobe Bryant would likely make Toronto a just-add-water contender in the Eastern Conference.

A deal that keeps Bosh a Raptor could look like this: Bargnani, Calderon, Nesterovic and Anthony Parker for Kobe Bryant and Vujacic. That would work, too. If the Los Angeles Lakers wanted to unload centre Kwame Brown, the Raptors could get a big man by tossing in Kris Humphries, Juan Dixon and Graham.

The Raptors' starting five could be Bosh, Kwame Brown, Kobe Bryant, Vujacic and Ford. Admittedly, the bench would be non-existent - literally - but that's for Colangelo to figure out.

If the Los Angeles Lakers are truly thinking long-term - one of the charges Kobe Bryant made in justifying his trade request - teaming Bargnani, 21, with centre Andrew Bynum, 19, would support that effort, and Parker and Calderon could start along with Lamar Odom. The Los Angeles Lakers could do worse.

The key in all this mindless chatter is Kobe Bryant. He is the only player in the NBA with a no-trade clause. For that reason, most of the trade scenarios bubbling around have centred on the New York Knicks or Chicago Bulls as A-list franchises Kobe Bryant would agree to play for.

As one of the NBA's internationalists - raised in Italy, Kobe Bryant speaks the language fluently and is a big soccer fan (toss in some Toronto FC tickets) - perhaps Kobe Bryant would relish the opportunity play for one of the NBA's most outward-looking franchises.

Kobe Bryant to the Raptors? It's absolutely far-fetched and probably unwisely tampers with the Bosh-Bargnani tandem that promises long-term dividends. And there is the small matter of Kobe Bryant's, um, baggage, which includes well-founded charges of ball-hogging and now clubhouse lawyering, among others.

But it might make an NBA final appearance a reality sooner rather than later. The Kobe Bryant-led Raptors might even get themselves on television next season in the United States.

Stranger things have happened.

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