Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar who committed to two more years with the team, says he will not make his season debut for “probably weeks.”
The future Hall of Fame guard has been out seven months after tearing his Achilles in April. There was speculation that he would be ready to return soon after he was cleared to participate fully in practices. Bryant said he is gaining strength in the injured area, but is not ready for NBA action just yet.
“I need some more practices to kind of be able to measure it and test it and some of the limitations that I had in the first couple of practices, kind of come back and see if they’re still there, if they’re not,” Bryant said.
The Lakers have three practices scheduled for the week of Dec. 1.
“You kind of start looking at those dates a little bit,” he said, “but I think those three (practice) days when we get back are going to be huge to kind of see what I can do, what I can’t do, day after day.”
Meanwhile, Bryant spoke of the two-year, $48.5 million contract extension he signed Monday that surprised most since he spoke of retiring when his current deal expires, which was after this season. If he plays the length of the extension, he will set an NBA record by playing 20 seasons with one team. Former Utah Jazz guard John Stockton held the record with 19 years.
“I’ve been fortunate,” Bryant said. “I’ve been very, very lucky. Very blessed. It’s very hard in terms of cap restrictions and things of that nature for a group of players to stay together for a long period of time, or one player to stay with one team for a long period of time. You just don’t see it that often. So I feel very, very blessed and very fortunate to be a Laker for life.”
“It makes me want to run through a wall for them It kind of just adds more fuel to the fire of being able to come out and kind of prove to everybody that [the Lakers] are right and everybody else is wrong.”
Bryant’s salary will keep him as the league’s highest paid player. But he said he did not seek that distinction.
“We had no conversation whatsoever,” Bryant said when asked about the Lakers’ salary cap moving forward. “The only number that I saw was the one that I agreed to.”
