He's old now, and the Lakers were terrible last year. Kobe basically imploded and started playing insanely selfishly and terribly, there was even a game where he was 8-for-30 with 9 turnovers. He also was on video cursing at Mitch Kupchak (the Lakers General Manager) and insulting everyone on the team.
...then he sat a game to rest and the guys won without him. He came back and tried to stat stuff with assists...then got injured for the rest of the year. He finished as the second-worst player in the entire league in terms of +/- (meaning how good his team was with him playing vs with him not playing), better than, I think, only Andrea Bargnani.
Few people are expecting much this year. Probably more assist-stat stuffing and a quick injury exit followed by retirement.