Kobe Bryant says he'll return this season despite Lakers' sagging record

Kobe Bryant has played in just six games for the Lakers this season, returning to the court in December after an Achilles injury, only to later suffer a fractured left knee. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / )

BOSTON -- The Lakers can't stop losing games, 12 out of their last 13 going into Friday, but Kobe Bryant says he will return this season, regardless of their sagging record.

'If you give yourself wiggle room to not push yourself as hard as you possibly can by thinking 'I'm going to sit out' ... then the motivation's gone, and I refuse to have that happen,' he said before the Lakers played the Boston Celtics. 'It's my job to be ready.'

But who knows how low the Lakers (14-25) will have plummeted by the time Bryant returns in at least two weeks? He has played only six games this season, sitting out the Lakers' first 19 while recovering from a torn Achilles' tendon. He then fractured his knee Dec. 17 against Atlanta.

Magic Johnson told The Times on Wednesday that Bryant should sit out the rest of the season and not risk further injury to his body.

Johnson didn't have to state the obvious -- the lower the Lakers are in the standings, the better their position will be for a solid amateur draft in June.

The Lakers have dropped all the way to 14th in the Western Conference.

'It's been very difficult, very frustrating,' Bryant said. 'I try to detach from it as much as possible. I feel like [I'm] taking ... Bruce Banner, and putting him in the middle of a bar fight and hope he doesn't become the Hulk. That's what I feel like watching these games.

'I mentally take myself someplace else. I think about sitting on the beach. Try to think about something else.'

Bryant tried to see the positives about Nick Young calling out teammates for not backing him up in an altercation Wednesday against Phoenix. Young was suspended for a game after punching Suns guard Goran Dragic. He later said he was 'one on five' on the court as he was surrounded by Suns players.

Bryant blamed the Lakers' youth. Rookie Ryan Kelly and second-year guard Kendall Marshall were on the court at the time.

'They're not accustomed to being in this type of situation. In the future when you see that situation, now they know how to react,' Bryant said. 'For Nick, I think it was a good sign. It's never good to smack a player across the face. But for Nick personally, he hasn't showed that competitive streak since he's been in the league, but I think now it's kind of starting to come out of him. That's a positive sign.'

Off the court, Bryant took a detour after the Lakers landed Thursday evening in Boston. He sat in on a marketing class Thursday at Boston College.

'It was a random thing,' he said. 'Obviously, I've been doing a good amount of international marketing for the last 15 years, so to sit in a classroom and actually hear the proper terminology for some of the things that I've been doing is pretty cool.'

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