Kobe Bryant Injury: What It Means

By Matt Mills on Saturday, April 13th 2013
Kobe Bryant Injury: What It Means
Photo: Courtesy of The Washington Post

The Los Angeles Lakers are 43-37 and in eighth place in the Western Conference after Friday night's 118-116 win over the Golden State Warriors.  The team who once had a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer at three of their five starting spots, and used to be the butt of almost everyone's jokes, hold their own fate when it comes to whether or not they are going to hold on to the eighth playoff spot.

The Lakers have two games remaining on the regular season: tomorrow versus San Antonio and Wednesday versus Houston.  If they win both of those games, they will seal the eighth seed up for the playoffs.  If they lose one of those games--as Bruce Drennan would say, All Bets Are Off.

LA's battle to hang on to the final playoff spot became much more difficult on Friday night when, with three minutes left in his team's game against the Warriors, Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles tendon.  Unless you're the one and only moronic individual who actually asked Kobe after the game if he would consider playing with the tear, you realize what Kobe realized the moment the injury occurred: his 2013 NBA season is most certainly over (even if his team isn't just quite yet) and it's likely he'll miss most, if not all of the 2013-'14 season.

If you've followed the Lakers season at all, you're probably not surprised that this team has suffered another serious injury to one of it's stars.  Kobe is just the latest example of a team that has been absolutely decimated by injuries.  After acquiring one of the best offensive point guards to ever play the game in Steve Nash this summer, the star missed over a month of games after playing the first two games of the season.  In total, Nash has missed 30 of the team's 80 games this season.

Fellow All-Star and summer acquisition, Dwight Howard, hasn't been 100 percent this entire season after coming off back surgery over the summer.  Although Dwight has only missed six games on the year, he's been a game-time decision in just about as many games as he hasn't been, something that is never a good thing for your team's starting center and defensive backbone.  As if that weren't enough to deal with, Dwight has had to listen to former Los Angeles Laker great and current TNT studio analyst, Shaquille O'Neal, criticize him for being 'soft' much of the season.

Metta World Peace just returned to the line-up from knee surgery that was expected to keep him out six weeks.  World Peace, in a fashion like only he could, proclaimed to journalists that he's "too sexy for his cat" after he returned from the surgery nearly a month earlier than he was slated to.

Lakers forward Pau Gasol suffered a tear to his plantar fascia in his right foot and was sidelined almost six weeks before recently returning.  In all this season, Gasol has missed 33 of LA's games.  On top of having to deal with injuries, Gasol has also had to deal with the fact that Los Angeles hired Mike D'Antoni when Mike Brown was fired as the team's head coach after a 1-4 start.  For whatever reason, D'Antoni has refused to alter his "system" to get the future Hall-of-Famer in the positions where he is most effective.  It's really stunning how badly D'Antoni has handled this situation.

Not only has he mismanaged Gasol, D'Antoni has played Kobe 48, 47, 43, 47, 41, 48 and 45 minutes (was absolutely on his way to another 48 before the injury) in the team's last seven games.  Say what you will about Kobe being the ultimate competitor and wanting to do as much as he can, but at some point the head coach has to put his foot down when he sees something is not benefiting the team and it's players.  D'Antoni has a history of coaching for the short term, and in effect, ruining his superstar's bodies (see: Amar'e Stoudemire in New York and Amar'e in Phoenix).

A huge question on some people's minds is whether or not the Lakers organization is going to be willing to pay Kobe Bryant the $30M they are going to owe him next season (the final year of his contract, after which he said he planned on retiring).  Something that may come in to play is the fact that if Kobe missed the entire 2013-14 NBA season, the Lakers have an insurance policy that would pay Kobe 80 percent of the $30M he is owed.

Another option the team has at it's disposal is the realistic possibility of is amnestying Kobe, something that Dallas Mavericks owner Marc Cuban suggested earlier in the season that LA may do (albeit not under the current circumstances), however that decision would have to come between July 1st and July 9th. 

It's no secret that the Lakers are looking to cut payroll costs, so the possibility of LA going this route is definitely a real one.  If they were to do that, they would have to hope that they have enough cap room in the summer of '14 to resign him (assuming they want him to play for them), and would not be able to go over the cap in doing so because they would lose his Bird Rights.  Not to mention, if the Lakers re-sign Dwight Howard to a max contract after this season like most everyone in the know believes they're going to try and do, it would make it virtually impossible to sign LeBron James in the summer of '14 like most believe they are intending to do.

Perhaps the strangest part of Kobe tearing his Achilles is how vocal he has been since the injury.  Instead of going immediately to the hospital, he stuck around and watched the end of the Lakers game on Friday from the locker room and then stuck around for an almost eight-minute interview after the game, in which he was 100 percent open about the injury.

On top of that, Kobe has posted photos of himself getting an MRI and a photo of himself after he was prepared for surgery on Instagram and linked them to his Twitter account (@KobeBryant).  Bryant also went on a late-night Facebook rant that is sure to draw the attention of millions.

I fully expect the Lakers to hang on to the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.  However, without their best player--and arguably the best player to ever play the game--it isn't going to surprise many people if the San Antonio Spurs make quick work of them in round one.

Stay In Touch

Scores

7:00 PM ET
Cavaliers
-
Knicks
-
7:00 PM ET
Magic
-
Grizzlies
-
7:00 PM ET
Wizards
-
Bucks
-
7:30 PM ET
Raptors
-
Heat
-
8:30 PM ET
Mavericks
-
Pelicans
-
8:30 PM ET
Spurs
-
Pistons
-
9:30 PM ET
Rockets
-
Timberwolves
-
9:30 PM ET
Jazz
-
Thunder
-
10:00 PM ET
Kings
-
Warriors
-