A late-November game against Golden State is as good an occasion as any to ask the question: What exactly motivates Kobe Bryant these days?

What gets the modern-day Mr. June, the guy who has had seven of his 14 seasons in the league finish in the NBA Finals, ramped up for a one-of-82 regular-season matchup against the perennial Pacific Division also-rans?

Whether Bryant likes to admit it or not, the Jordan comparisons are inevitable, including the drive to win they share. Vince Bucci/Getty Images

Does he just take joy in teaching the next generation what it takes to be great? He's already punished former USC products O.J. Mayo and DeMar DeRozan this season when the Lakers played the Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors, respectively. During the summer he'll play pickup with those guys and geek out in their shared love of the game, but when the season rolls around and the cameras are on, he does whatever he can to degrade them with his play.

The Warriors' Stephen Curry will be the latest young buck to get that treatment from Bryant.

But that can't possibly be enough.

Is he chasing the record books? Thirteen games into his 15th season, he's already set a few new ones -- embarking on the franchise record for most consecutive seasons played with the Los Angeles Lakers; becoming the youngest player in NBA history to score 26,000 points; passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time minutes mark with the purple and gold.

"I don't know about them until they come up," Bryant said.

Yep, all of those records that make the number of bullet points on his Wikipedia page resemble a BB gun target practice sheet hardly cause him to bat an eyelash.

"I don't even know who even keeps track of all that stuff," he said. "Like all-time minutes, what the hell is that? It just means I played a lot. I think the honor in that comes in that I've been able to spend my entire career with one team which is rare to see nowadays. I don't try to get caught up too much in that stuff."

Derek Fisher, who came into Lakers camp with Bryant as a fellow rookie back in 1996, thinks that the accomplishments -- however trivial -- mean more to him than he lets on.

"I think they're meaningful," Fisher said. "They're milestones that very few people have ever accomplished or will ever have the chance to achieve, but I don't know how he measures it out -- whether it's ultimately just winning the titles or if some of these individual things kind of add up to be just as important. But they have to be special, I would say."

Fisher has said he figured out a long time ago that his fellow co-captain realized at a young age that he had the physical gifts to become the best ever to play the game.

Early on in his career, Bryant famously said, "What I'm doing right now, I'm chasing perfection," about his approach to the game.

But when you set your expectations that high, magnificent feats can become mundane. When you already have five rings, a gold medal, an MVP award and an 81-point game, it goes without saying that some things just don't register too high on your gratification radar.

For instance, did you know Bryant co-owns the record for most 3-pointers made in a single game (12) with Donyell Marshall? It rarely gets a mention in Bryant's long list of accomplishments, yet for Marshall, it stands as his most impressive feat as a pro.

"You know what, when I'm older and I'm like 70 years old or something like that, maybe then I'll get a little more sentimental," Bryant said. "But right now, I just want to win."

If Bryant and the Lakers win the championship this season, it won't only be a three-peat for the team and a Boston Celtics-tying 17th for the franchise, but it will be the sixth for Bryant.

So maybe it's the Michael Jordan draw.