TORONTO --  With the 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers season having evolved into the Kobe Bryant retirement tour, every away game has become a media circus with the local beat writers and scribes attempting to get one last quip from the Black Mamba.

Even though he’s got a backstage pass to the tour, second-year guard Jordan Clarkson admits the insanity of it all still surprises him.

“It’s like a roller coaster, to be honest with you,” Clarkson told TSN.ca, in Toronto as a member of Team USA in the NBA Rising Stars Challenge that goes Friday night as part of All-Star Weekend. “I don’t know what to expect. Every hotel that we go to, there’s 150 to 200 people outside. It’s crazy, I ain’t lying to you. We get to sit back and enjoy it, as well, because it’s the man’s last year.”

Announcing one’s final season prior to calling it a career has become the custom in recent years for athletes of a certain vintage. Before Kobe, there were New York Yankees legends Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in consecutive years. Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz is about to embark on his final spring training and, if it’s not already over after his Super Bowl triumph, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is likely to announce that this upcoming season will be his swansong.

There are certainly pros and cons to this practice.

On the one hand, there is making every road game an event as the Lakers are witnessing right now. Kobe, like Jeter and Rivera before him, is the focal point of virtually every game (including Sunday’s All-Star Game at the Air Canada Centre.) That might be a little bit unwarranted for a 37-year-old whose usage (his 29.3 minutes a night are the lowest he’s played since his second season in the NBA in 1998) and scoring (Aside from his injury-shortened 2013-14 campaign that was limited to just six games, Bryant’s 16.9 points per game are also the fewest since he was a 19-year-old sophomore) pale in comparison to the heights of his illustrious career.

But for a young player like Clarkson, knowing that his time with Bryant is so limited, it’s a further reminder to take in what he can from the 20-year pro. The 23 year old is making the most of this final season with a player who can pass on so much.

“He talks to me a lot,” Clarkson said of Bryant. “I wish I had one of your recorders with me so I can remember everything. At the end of the day, he just tells me to think everything out. It’s hard to do sometimes because, as a basketball player, you just want to hoop and have fun and go out there and score buckets and play D. But for him, there’s a whole lot of thinking to do.”

Clarkson is a quick study. A year after being named to the All-Rookie Team as a second-round pick out of Mizzou, the native of Tampa, Fla., has found himself in a new role on Byron Scott’s club. 

Operating primarily as a point guard in his rookie season, where he averaged 11.9 points and 3.5 assists over 25.0 minutes a night in 59 games, Clarkson has shifted over to the two with the team drafting D’Angelo Russell out of Ohio State and signing combo guard and reigning Sixth Man of the Year, Lou Williams, from the Toronto Raptors.

Though he acknowledges that the change has been difficult, it seems to be working for Clarkson. Through 53 games, Clarkson is averaging 15.4 points a night with 3.9 rebounds and 1.1 steals over 32.3 minutes.

“I play a lot off the ball this year,” Clarkson said of his new role. “I’m not controlling as much as I did last year, due to Kobe and a couple of other guys we have on the team. I feel like I’m kind of coming along playing off the ball. My shots are coming in different ways every game, but it’s definitely been an adjustment that I had to make this year. Last year, I always knew where my shots were coming from, but I’m getting used to it.”

What Clarkson hasn’t been able to get used to, though, is winning. After playing at a .256 clip a season ago, the Lakers are 11-42 and dead last in the Western Conference, only three games better than the Philadelphia 76ers for the league’s worst record.

But that’s where Kobe comes in handy. Being the focal point means taking away the spotlight from a young team with talented pieces that just hasn’t put it all together yet. Bryant will allow the team enough of a distraction to again take its lumps and head into the off-season with another lottery pick* and a boatload of cap space.

Still, even with expectations as low as they are, Clarkson doesn’t expect an easy time of it from coach Byron Scott in the team’s final stretch of 29 games. He says that the message from Scott was for the club to recharge over the break.

“Relax and have fun,” Clarkson said of Scott’s directive. “Come back with a mindset from progress and keep coming at it. We’re going to go out there and we’re going to compete. Coach ain’t going to let up on us, so he’s going to put us to work.”

That work begins anew for Clarkson and the Lakers on Feb. 19 when the team hosts the juggernaut San Antonio Spurs at the Staples Center.

* The Lakers traded a top-five protected first-round pick to the Phoenix Suns as part of the Steve Nash trade. In 2016, the pick becomes top-three protected, but it's not the Suns' anymore. At the deadline last year, the Suns sent that pick to the Sixers in a three-team deal that, most notably, saw Goran Dragic head to the Miami Heat.