The Los Angeles Lakers dropped their first four games of the 2014-15 NBA season, creating speculation that Kobe Bryant will eventually consider leaving his team and move to title contenders.
Bryant is playing in the final years of his career, but he wants to win more titles. Winning his sixth NBA title seems unrealistic at this point unless he moves to a title contender with sources mentioning the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls as his likely destination.
But when asked about the rumors surrounding his future in Los Angeles, Bryant reiterated that he remains committed to the Lakers, who gave him a lucrative two-year, $48 million deal in November last year.
"I hear the chatter of Kobe should ask out and he should go and play for a contender in this latter stage of his career," Bryant said in an interview with Yahoo Sports. "But that's not what I do. I'm extremely loyal to the Lakers. I believe in fighting through the tough times as well as enjoying the good times. It's my responsibility to get us to be the best that we can be. It's important that we approach that on a day-to-day basis."
The Lakers lost in their first four games against the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors by an average margin of 17 points.
Things are not expected to get easy for the Lakers moving forward, especially if they will continue to be slowed down by injuries. Steve Nash was recently ruled out for this season due to nagging back issues, while Julius Randle broke his leg and will likely miss the rest of the season.
Bryant, who averaged 24.8 points to go along with 4.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in their first four games, said, though, that he is still optimistic that they would turn things around as the season progresses.
"It's a very long season," Bryant said. "You just have to stay the course. Keep on looking to improve, keep on looking to get better and things will eventually break. I've enjoyed a great amount of success here. You can't just enjoy the successful times and then run away from the bad ones. No, I don't even think about [departing]. I'm a Laker."
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