As the years flew by and Kobe Bryant finally succumbed to the reality that Father Time was the one opponent he would never shake, he began to wear the Old Man Hat as if it were his favorite, worn-out baseball cap.
The cracks about his age became a reliable part of his media repertoire, the Los Angeles Lakers star routinely citing his aching joints or the generation gap between him and his much-younger teammates. It was funny stuff, endearing even, to hear him talk so honestly and comfortably about this stage that all the greats eventually face.
But as Bryant completed his latest comeback this week, playing 12 minutes and showing no shortage of rust in the Lakers preseason game against the Utah Jazz on Sunday, his return offered a reminder that some athletes laugh about this part because, well, it’s enough to make you cry. As Kobe is so acutely aware, he is not merely a 37-year-old with two decades’ worth of wear and tear. He has become the NBA’s Mr. Potato Head of late, with body parts falling off at every turn and the quality of his final chapter being compromised.
The Achilles tendon tear. The fractured knee. The torn rotator cuff that ended his season last January, this less than two weeks after he had admitted that the rash of injuries had sparked a natural and constant fear that the next setback was just around the corner. Yet now, as he told USA TODAY Sports at Lakers camp, he’s at peace with this idea that even he can’t know how this will end.
“I just let (the concerns) go after a while, man,” said Bryant, who will be a free agent next summer and has made it clear he’s unsure whether he’ll retire. “You have to ask yourself, did you do everything you possibly could to prepare for the season? And I have. I’ve trained really hard to get to this point, and you have to be comfortable with that. Whatever happens is really beyond your control.”
Stay healthy. Be productive. Help this team full of youngsters win games. His to-do list, for simplicity’s sake, ends there.
“Just play the game that’s right in front of you,” he said. “That means a lot at this age to be able to do that, when you can react to situations, when you have the physical capability to react to situations, the skills are still there to react to situations. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself. And being healthy man. I’d love to play all year, too.”
It speaks volumes about Bryant’s state of mind that he has no muse for this particular moment. He has spent recent years seeking inspiration from all corners, be it the Arianna Huffington and Anna Wintour types in the business world or his widely known basketball North Star, Michael Jordan. In this instance, however, he has yet to find someone who can truly relate to this particular path.
“This is unchartered territory,” he said. “My 37 (years old) isn’t MJ’s 37 (when he returned after taking two seasons off to play for the Washington Wizards), you know what I mean? Nor is it the same team or the same system that he was playing in. It’s much, much different. There’s really no barometer, no (precedent) for training physically, for recovery. It’s unchartered territory.”
At this rate, the notion of Bryant being as productive as Jordan was during his bon voyage would be seen as a win because it meant he stayed on the floor. Jordan’s final two seasons weren’t vintage MJ by any measure, but it wasn’t Willie Mays playing for the Mets either.
For the Lakers’ purposes, they desperately need him to not only be productive but to strike all the right leadership chords for this young and promising group that surrounds him. The internal hope, it’s quite clear, is that the young core of D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, and Julius Randle can be exciting and impactful enough this season to inspire their superstar colleagues to come their way.
As the Lakers see it, that sort of young and semi-proven foundation was the missing component when they missed out on so many top-tier free agents these past few summers. And rest assured, it’s no coincidence that so many of their player contracts expire right about the time that former MVP Kevin Durant is set to become a free agent.
Because the league’s nine-year, $24 billion television contract with ESPN and Turner is set to start in the 2016-17 campaign, the league’s salary cap that is $67 million this season will be at a record $89 million. Meanwhile, the Lakers have $19 million in guaranteed contracts on the books for that season.
The next six months become crucial when it comes to the power of perception. Stay alive in the playoff race, or even shock the NBA world and sneak in, and you’ve upped your odds of landing someone of Durant’s caliber once July rolls around. Stay in the NBA cellar, however, and this historically challenging stretch is likely to continue.
“I’m not sure yet (what they’ll be),” he said. “I don’t know. To give you an honest answer, I don’t know how this team is going to measure up. (The playoffs is) always a goal. That’s always a goal. But to win a championship, you first must start with a very small window and understand that how we put these pieces of the puzzle together, how we fit, what’s our identity offensively and defensively? There are a lot of questions to be answered.”
Now begins their latest season of uncertainty.
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