Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013 at 9:00 am  |  69 responses

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Kobe Bryant Says the Los Angeles Lakers are Old and Lack Energy

by Marcel Mutoni / @ marcel_mutoni

Kobe Bryant has managed to hold off Father Time and is thriving despite his advanced age. Thanks to a new diet, and the same old maniacal drive to train and improve, Bryant is playing some of the best, most efficient basketball of his 17-year career.

The same cannot be said for the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers.

More often than not, they look old, slow and lethargic. According to an enraged Kobe after last night’s loss to the visiting Philadelphia Sixers (which pushed the Lakers below .500 again), this is due to the fact that his team is indeed old, slow and lethargic.

Per the OC Register:

“It’s because we’re old as (expletive),” Kobe Bryant said. “We just have to figure out how to play when we don’t have that energy. We have to change things up a little bit defensively, we have to figure out what we want to do offensively. We have to figure out what we want to do on nights when we don’t have those legs, or when we don’t have the energy.”

Bryant suggested all his teammates need to take care of their bodies and get proper rest so they will be ready to play. “(Tonight) we were sluggish, stuck in the mud,” Bryant said. “When we have games like that, everything is an uphill battle for us. When we play fresh, we play energized, we are a completely different team.” He added: “We’re just an old damn team. We’re just slow. We were just stuck in the mud.”

Metta World Peace isn’t buying the excuse that his squad is old and slow:

“That’s no excuse, the Knicks are playing great, so that’s no excuse,” World Peace said. “You can’t use it as an excuse for us. Thank you. Thanks for trying.”

The Lakers’ lone young star, 27-year old Dwight Howard (who continues to struggle with a balky back), could only muster 7 points — though he was solid on defense, with 14 rebounds and 5 blocked shots — and looked visibly frustrated following the loss.

Head coach Mike D’Antoni suggested that the Lakers weren’t looking past the Sixers in anticipation of the upcoming matchup against the LA Clippers on Friday night. They simply stunk up the joint.