Kobe: 'I get held to much higher standards than most of my peers'

Now that we've got confirmation Kobe Bryant is a "Laker for life," we can can begin debating why the 37-year-old future Hall of Famer is the league's most dissected player.

By his own admission, the Los Angeles Lakers icon has not played well in the early stages of the 2015-16 campaign. Through five games, he is shooting 32.1 percent from the field and 21.1 percent from beyond the arc.

While 77 regular-season games remain, providing ample opportunity for the 20-year vet to improve his 13.2 player efficiency rating - his career PER is 23.2 - Bryant claims that the expectations placed upon him are not quite the same as those placed on his contemporaries.

"I get held to much higher standards than most of my peers," he told Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski after the Lakers' first win of the season Friday.

"If I have a bad shooting night, it's, 'He's in the grave. He's in the coffin.' Look around the league, and other players have bad shooting nights - and it's just a bad shooting night."

To his point, Los Angeles Clippers forward and Staples Center cohabitant Paul Pierce - who is about a year older than Bryant - is shooting a similarly woeful 37.5 percent from the field and 20 percent from long distance, yet manages to escape the same level of scrutiny as the five-time champ.

Nevertheless, Bryant relishes the critical feedback sent his way.

"But the expectations that they have for me, they're actually something that I appreciate." he said. "Achilles injury. Fractured knee. Torn shoulder. Twentieth year in the league. Thirty-seven years old. All that, and the expectations are that I average 30 points.

"I appreciate those standards, because it's something that still pushes me, still drives me."

Whether or not this is the final go-round for "The Black Mamba" is anyone's guess. But while Bryant has not given an unequivocal indication either way about his eventual farewell, he remains committed to helping his team's young core develop - his way of giving back to the franchise that traded for him on that fateful draft day in 1996.

While we may see Bryant, the mentor, defer to his neophyte teammates from time to time, the ever-competitive shooting guard still plans on showing the world what he's capable of during the twilight of his two-decade career.

"Let's see what I can do."