NBA Rumors: Lakers’ Kobe Bryant To Be Properly Managed This Season
NBA Rumors: Los Angeles Lakers coach Byron Scott admits that he made a mistake last season when managing Kobe Bryant’s minutes; will adjust this season
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Coming off one of the most debilitating injuries for basketball players (torn achilles) followed by a fractured lateral tibial plateau in his left knee, Kobe Bryant averaged nearly 35 minutes per game. He even had a few instances (4) where he played 40-plus minutes.
Ultimately his season ended after shoulder surgery after just 35 games, though it was clear that giving a 36-year-old – whether he’s Kobe Bryant or not – that many minutes was clearly not the smartest thing that Byron Scott has done in his short tenure as the head coach of the Lakers.
If nothing else, it was a learning experience. A regretful one, too.
"[via OC Register]I felt bad about it. I don’t know if I would say guilty. I know Kobe’s a competitor and he’s going to play as many minutes as you want him to play. I’m also a competitor, so I want to win and I know having him on the court gives me the best opportunity to win. But I also know that I’ve got to think about him more than anything. And I thought there were points in time last year where I thought he could play a certain amount of minutes. He told me Day One the minutes that he thought he could play in and like I told him at the end of the day, ‘You were absolutely right and I was wrong.’ I won’t make that mistake again….I think the biggest decision is playing time, trying to make that as limited as possible and also back-to-back games. That’s something we have to talk about…He wants to play, and he wants to go out the way he wants to go out — if this is indeed his final year. He and I have talked a number of times on the phone, we’ve talked about playing time, we’ve talked about back-to-back, we’re going to probably sit down as we get closer to training camp or as we get in training camp and even talk more about it. Because the one thing I want, if this is his last year…I don’t want him to go out hurt. I want to make sure I do everything in my power to make sure we stick to the game plan, as far as his minutes and as far as back-to-back games."
Did not having a minute-restriction on Kobe cause his latest injury? Probably not, but it didn’t help any either.
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The most intelligent plan of action regarding Kobe is implementing a minute-count and probably restricting his availability in back-to-back games, at least initially. And it sounds like Scott has the right idea, even if it is a year too late.
As I’ve echoed before, the most important thing this season for the Lakers, is to get Kobe Bryant through this season – healthy.
Unfortunately, even if Kobe does sign off on this limitation, there’s no guarantee that he’ll finish the year on his own two feet. But, at the very least, it’s encouraging to hear Scott’s plan of action for Kobe this season.