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Kobe Bryant's competitive fire will never burn out, but we're nearing the day when he'll have to pass the torch to the next keeper of the flame for the Los Angeles Lakers.

It may not seem like Bryant is approaching the end of his career. Forget the mileage and the years and the ongoing incursion into the history books (most missed shots ever, anyone?): Bryant is playing like a guy who doesn't look anywhere close to calling it quits.

But we know there's an expiration date on his NBA career, because he told us so himself.

According to Sam Amick of USA Today:

'Nah, not really,' [Bryant] said with a grin and a shake of the head when asked if he can envision playing beyond his current contract. 'But I'm so loyal to this organization, there's not a chance (of him leaving)…I've been really fortunate to win a lot of games here, a lot of championships here. You can't (expletive) with (that).'

Kobe's contract runs through next season, at which point the Lakers will be officially out of the strange limbo phase they're currently mired in. Rebuilding will start fresh, and the Bryant era—all two decades of it—will be finished.

Of course, injury could put an abrupt coda on things much sooner than that. But we'll operate as though L.A.'s changing of the Hall of Fame guard will happen in the summer of 2016.

With that in mind, the Lakers need to be thinking about who'll run the show after Bryant's reign concludes. They failed to secure Dwight Howard to an extension in 2013, then whiffed on obligatory swings at Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and just about every other big name on the market this year.

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Bryant's presence on the roster (and his massive $48.5 million in cap-crushing salary over the next two years) may very well have had something to do with the lack of outside superstar interest. But the rest of L.A.'s bare-bones roster probably didn't help either.

When L.A. makes its 2015 pitches to free agents, all of those potentially repellent factors will still be in place. So it's entirely possible the Lakers will fail to find Kobe's successor this coming summer.

Still, rumblings about the next in line have already begun.

Sam Smith of Bulls.com speculated that Kevin Love might opt out of his deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers if things don't go as planned this season, opening up the possibility of his heading to Los Angeles.

"Indications are he will seriously consider the opt out and has his eyes on a return to Los Angeles, where he attended college and where the Lakers long have had him on their free agent wish list," Smith wrote.

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Two issues here: First, Love was always going to opt out of his contract. It makes total sense for him to do so, even if his plan is to stay with Cleveland. He'll make more money on a new deal and can control negotiations from a position with some real leverage.

Love would be crazy not to opt out, and it's not really news that he's considering it.

Second, as nicely as Love might fit in L.A., the Lakers have always aimed higher when searching for their generational superstars. That sounds crazy to say about Love, who is arguably among the league's top 10 talents, but having never led his team to the playoffs and never done enough on defense, it's possible that Love wouldn't fit the bill as the next top dog in Los Angeles.

Of course, given the whiffs the Lakers have endured lately, they probably wouldn't turn Love away.

In addition to Love, LeBron James, Goran Dragic and Al Jefferson can exercise options to become free agents. But the first guy couldn't leave his current team without causing nuclear fallout, and the other two aren't superstar needle-movers. Nor have they shown the capability to lead their teams to significant success.

There are also unrestricted free agents aplenty:

Unrestricted Free Agents in 2015 Player Current Team Age on July 1, 2015 LaMarcus Aldridge Portland Trail Blazers 29 Rajon Rondo Boston Celtics 29 Marc Gasol Memphis Grizzlies 30 Omer Asik New Orleans Pelicans 29 Rudy Gay Sacramento Kings 28 DeAndre Jordan Los Angeles Clippers 26 Robin Lopez Portland Trail Blazers 27 Wesley Matthews Portland Trail Blazers 28 Paul Millsap Atlanta Hawks 30 Greg Monroe Detroit Pistons 25 RealGM.com

Of the totally untethered 2015 crop above, Marc Gasol is the most likely cornerstone. Los Angeles has a long history of building out from the big man—from Wilt to Kareem to Shaq to Pau Gasol to Dwight (for a split second)—so inking the Memphis Grizzlies' dominant center to a huge deal would fit into the historical M.O.

But Gasol has basically lived his entire adult life in Memphis, and he hasn't made a peep about leaving. Not only that, but every other team with cap space and a dream will be hot on the big Spaniard's heels. The Lakers, locked into one more year of Bryant Limbo, might not be the most appealing of Gasol's many options.

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If the Lakers want to scale back their approach while mucking up the plans of a few other teams, perhaps they could throw big offers at restricted free agents like Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Reggie Jackson or Iman Shumpert.

Hey, it couldn't hurt.

The real key for the Lakers will be duplicating the double-move blueprint that rejuvenated the franchise in 1996: signing megastar Shaquille O'Neal and grabbing rookie Kobe Bryant via draft-day trade.

L.A. likely won't have to make a swap to snatch up a promising rookie this time around. Though it owes a 2015 top-five protected first-round pick to the Phoenix Suns, it's awfully tough to imagine the Lakers finishing with anything better than the second- or third-worst record in the league. The lottery can do funny, occasionally unfair things, but it seems like a safe bet that the Suns won't be collecting that selection from the Lakers this summer.

(One issue to note in the Lakers' long-term plans: They'll have to give that pick to Phoenix eventually. It's top-three protected in 2016 and 2017 and unprotected in 2018. At some point in the near future, the Lakers are going to lose what will probably be a very valuable asset.)

At any rate, Los Angeles has to start thinking about the future now—both because its present is so bleak, and because pulling off the kind of multi-move overhaul necessary to restore the franchise's glory will be complicated.

Replacing Bryant may not be a one-man job.

Fortunately, the Lakers have last year's lottery pick, Julius Randle, on ice, ready to step back in at full strength in 2015-16. And they'll likely add a big-time rookie and (hopefully) a splashy free agent this summer.

If they can't pull off transformative moves that soon, 2016 will loom as the franchise's real pivot point. That's when Kobe will be gone, a real fresh start will be possible and some guy named Kevin Durant will hit the open market.

And the clock is ticking.