After Sunday's loss to the Toronto Raptors, the Los Angeles Lakers fell to 17-23, three games out of the eighth seed in the Western Conference. The season has been a colossal disappointment so far, and Kobe Bryant was willing to shoulder the blame not only for Sunday's defeat, but also for the entire season.

"That's on me," Bryant said. "I'll take this loss on me, gladly. It was a lot of easy shots -- a lot of them -- that I should put down. I will, I will. That's just on me.

"Everybody wants to know what's the reason, whose fault it is and this, that and the other. I just made it more easy. You should just point the finger at me. Let me take all that. This way, we won't have to worry about that as a team. It's part of my responsibility. I'll take [the criticism] and we can just focus on what we do best, which is playing together and trying to figure out how to get out of this losing."

Even so, Bryant indirectly brought Lakers management in the discussion.

"Unless they're going to do something roster-wise, I got to continue to push through it," Bryant said. "If this is what we're rolling with, then I can't make excuses. I got to go out there and do my job."