Photo by slamonline.com.
Kobe Bryant, just more than a week after making his season debut after Achilles surgery, must go into rehabilitation mode again, a major setback for the superstar and the Los Angeles Lakers for at least six weeks.
An MRI showed what Bryant thought was a hyperextended knee actually was a broken bone.
“You hate it for Kobe,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s worked so hard getting back. He was coming on. His shot percentage kept getting better and his turnovers kept getting less.”
Bryant played only six games in his return from the Achilles injury in April. He averaged 13.8 points, 6.3 assists and 5.7 turnover s in the six games and was flashing some of the “Black Mamba” special skills, finishing forays to the basket with dunks and draining deep three-point shots.
“We know how hard [Bryant] worked to get to this point, and for that to happen, it’s tough,” Laker Xavier Henry said. “I’m sure he’ll work just as hard to get back as soon as possible, and he’ll be ready.”
Said guard Nick Young: “We were playing at a certain way without him. Then he comes back and we started to play another way, started to get into the groove and get comfortable. Now they hit us with this—no point guard, no Kobe—but still we’ve got to jell and play for him and each other.”
Bryant shook off the knee injury after a few minutes and continued to play, finishing with 21 points. Team trainer Gary Vitti said Bryant’s former injury was “completely non-related” to his new setback.
But Dr. Alan Beyer, executive medical director of Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine, told the Los Angeles Times that Bryant’s Achilles’ injury and subsequent rehabilitation might have made him more susceptible to the knee injury.
“It’s a fracture of a bone that had a little bit of insufficiency in terms of its calcium content and strength because it wasn’t subject to the usual stresses placed on a limb by a professional basketball player,” said Beyer, speaking generally because he was not treating Bryant.
Beyer described the six-week timetable for Bryant’s return as “very realistic,” with one caveat.
“The question is, is the whole lower extremity going to be pro basketball level six weeks from now, in terms of the demands placed on it by someone of his caliber?” Beyer said.
Said D’Antoni: “He’s a tough guy. I think he’ll be back in six weeks and he’ll be hunting for some bear.”
