Kobe Bryant admits he wanted to play for Michael Jordan's Wizards

It's no secret Kobe Bryant modeled much of his game after Michael Jordan's, right down to the way the future Hall of Famer chews his gum and carries himself on the court.

It turns out Bryant also thought about playing for Jordan as a member of the Washington Wizards.

"That's true," Bryant admitted to the Washington Post's Michael Lee. "A long time ago? Yeah."

Bryant explained that during a feud with Shaquille O'Neal in the early 2000s, he envisioned himself playing for a team other than the Los Angeles Lakers.

Citing multiple sources, Lee reports that Jordan's Wizards could have been that team:

According to two people with knowledge of the situation, after Jordan decided to sell his minority ownership stake to resume his playing career with the Wizards, Bryant informed him several times he wanted to play for the Wizards - under the assumption that Jordan would return to the front office once his playing days were over.

Jordan's poor reputation as an executive wouldn't have stood in the way, either.

"What I look at, in terms of the front office, is their commitment to excellence, their commitment to not winning division banners but winning NBA championships," Bryant said. "He obviously was a championship-or-bust man," Kobe said of Jordan.

Bryant became a free agent in 2004, but Jordan had already been relieved of his role as President of Basketball Operations by that time, squashing any chance that Kobe would flee L.A. for D.C.

"We would've put together a great team and we would've won championships," Bryant said.

As for anyone questioning whether Bryant could have replicated his Lakers success with the Wizards, here's what Bryant had to say:

"Listen, man. There are not a lot of players in this league that say, 'Come hell or high water, we're going to get this (expletive) done.' People can look around and joke around about winning, saying they want to win. For me, it's a matter of life or death. It was that important to me. And if it's that important to me, I'm going to get there," Bryant said.

Imagine how NBA history would been altered if Bryant left the Lakers before O'Neal, long before players like Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum arrived.

How would we view Jordan's executive track record? Could Bryant's Wizards have met Shaq's Lakers in The Finals? Would Shaq have ever left L.A. for Miami?

The what-ifs are endless.