If you’re a Lakers fan and you’re not worried about Kobe Bryant … you ought to be.

Not because of the way he is performing. Of course not. He’s as good as ever.

Three buzzer-beating shots for victories already this season. Which is more than any other team has. A scoring average of 30.6 points per game, which leads the league and is the third-highest ppg average of his career. If the MVP voting were held today, he might win it.

No, nothing wrong with the way Kobe is playing.

It’s how much he is playing.

At 31,  Kobe Bryant is no longer a young man. Not by NBA standards.

NBA careers generally can be measured in dog years. Crazy friskiness in the first couple of years. A physical peak about four years in. Serious adulthood at about 7. And after 10 years in the league … you’re an old dog. Creaky, injury-prone, might have to be put down if something bad happens.

Well, Kobe is in his 14th NBA season. He came to the Lakers in 1996 straight out of Lower Merion High School, remember?

There are lots and lots of miles on his basketball odometer. After 980 regular-season games and 175 playoff games, after 42,458 minutes of NBA competition (add in the Olympics, if you want to alarm yourself even more) … figure he’s about to hit 200,000 miles. He may be a Porsche, but he’s a Porsche that has been driven. Hard.

This is the time for Kobe to back off. To reduce his minutes. To save himself for the stretch, for the playoffs — for next year and maybe the four or five after that.

We all know this. Jerry Buss knows it. Mitch Kupchak knows it. Phil Jackson knows it.

Even Kobe Bryant knows it … though he doesn’t want to concede it.

Kobe is averaging 38.7 minutes per game (up almost two per game from a year ago), almost halfway into the season.

Check his minutes over the last 10 Lakers games: 39 minutes, 50, 35, 39, 44, 45, 51, 36, 43, 47 … which is an average of 42.4 minutes per game. Or about 10 minutes per game too many.

Consider Tim Duncan. The Spurs’ center is 33 but this is only his 13th season, and he has played 68 fewer NBA games — almost an entire season — than has Bryant.

And this season? Duncan is averaging 31.7 minutes per game. Compared to Kobe’s 38.7. Which is, as my friend Mike Davis put it in a marvel of consecutive fractions: “A whole half of a quarter less.” But the Spurs are saving Tim Duncan for when games count more — in April, May and June.

How does Kobe’s playing time compare to other important veterans? Guys the Lakers may see in the playoffs?

He is playing more minutes than any of them.

Dirk Nowitzki is at 37.6, Chris Paul is 37.1, Ray Allen is 36.1. Jason Kidd 36.0,  Paul Pierce 35.4, Carlos Boozer 35.3, Dwight Howard 34.8, Amare Stoudemire 34.3, Steve Nash 33.4, Shane Battier 32.9, Hedo Turkoglu 32.8, Shawn Marion 32.2, Vince Carter 31.9, Chauncey Billups 31.8, Kevin Garnett 30.7.

Kobe is playing heavier minutes even than young bucks LeBron James (38.3), Deron Williams (38.0) and Dwayne Wade (37.0).

Only eight guys in the entire league are averaging more minutes than Kobe Bean Bryant, 14-year vet, and after Gerald Wallace, who is 27, none of the rest are older than 24.

The point being … Kobe needs to come out of games. He needs to rest. Even if means the Lakers lose a few more regular-season games.

Playing 47 minutes in a January game against the Sacramento Kings — as he did last night — is crazy. The man sat out for 60 whole seconds. At age 31, in his 1,155th NBA game.

Yes, we know that Derek Fisher is done. That Ron Artest is missing after his mysterious tumble. That the bench is thin, with Luke Walton hurt and Adam Morrison still suiting up.

So what. Send Jordan Farmar out there. Give Shannon Brown more time.  See if Sasha Vujacic remembers how to play.

Get Kobe Bryant off the court.

The Lakers need him to be a hero, and he so often is. But they need him to be a hero next spring, not next week.

The team needs to get this situation in hand, and if that means chaining Kobe to the bench while the reserves are blowing a lead, so be it. Give him a blindfold. So he can’t watch. We get the sense, from the other side of the world, that Lakers management is letting the player decide how much he will play, and Kobe the Competitor can’t bring himself to let even one game get away.

So it’s up to Phil Jackson to take control. Get Kobe’s minutes down to 35 per game. Or,  better yet, even 32.

Invent an injury, maybe. Have him miss a couple of games every month. Call it a broken finger or a sore elbow. (Oh, yeah: Those are real injuries the man has.) Tell him to stay home for the next one. Call in sick. Wink wink nudge nudge.

There will come a time when the Lakers will want Kobe Bryant on the court for all but a few minutes. But it is not in January.