The Lakers are having a disappointing season by any definition of the word.
At 5-13, they sit around the basement of the Western Conference, and are defending opposing teams at historically bad rates. Kobe Bryant is having a fairly successful year in terms of individual stats, and he recently became the first player in history to eclipse both 30,000 points and 6,000 assists.
However, Bryant's also an insatiable competitor, so finishing out his Los Angeles career on a downtrodden team definitely wasn't what he hoped for or had in mind.
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However, in a recent interview with Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski, Bryant took umbrage with the consensus that he's impatient or unhappy with his current teammates.
"The idea of me having no patience is misunderstood," Bryant said. "I don't have patience when we're not putting the work in, if I see that we're not doing our job as professionals. If that's happening, I'll let my team know about it. But this is not that kind of group. We work. These guys want to get better every day. They're there early working, they're there late working."
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Bryant added that, for him, "[it's] time for me to go out there and do my job – not whine or complain about it."
Although the Lakers in their current iteration are a long way from winning a championship, Bryant nevertheless expressed gratitude for his situation and acknowledged that the franchise is trying to stay on the right path.
"I've been very lucky," he said. "There's not too many organizations that come around like the Lakers. There aren't owners that come around like Jerry Buss. Now, Jim and Jeanie. They're really committed to this. They're really hungry for this. I could've easily been stuck with an organization somewhere that doesn't have great management, doesn't have a great owner – that only cares about the bottom line. Who knows the situation that I'd be in?"
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