It’s always odd to see athletes you grew up watching who were once so athletic and could seemingly do anything, only to see them fall from grace as Father Time caught up to them. Bryant played 36 minutes, the most he has this season, in the win over the Pistons.
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Massey also said that with Bryant potentially playing his final season in the National Basketball Association, his desire “to contend for a championship” may push him to allow the Lakers to trade him to a sure title contender, say the San Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Cavaliers, or Golden State Warriors.
“I’m barely standing up”, the 37-year-old said after the game on Sunday night. If I change my mind, I’ll come back and play. “I’m not looking forward to walking to the auto right now”.
D’Angelo Russell has been struggling at times for the Lakers this season and the young point guard has been getting benched late in a few games by Scott.
Between now and April (or July), we’re just going to be treated to more of this, one supposes.
Bledsoe has had a great start to the year, averaging 23.2 points, 6.2 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game to help push the Suns to a 5-4 record.
“I keep hearing about this back to back”, said Lakers coach Byron Scott. His strategy hasn’t worked so far, because the Lakers are losing anyway with Williams or Bryant on the floor. Kobe will be matched up mostly with Marcus Morris and Stanley Johnson tonight, as he has been playing small forward primarily this season.
“He did the right thing”, Scott said.
Metta World Peace, starting in place of Bryant, had 10 of his 11 first-half points in the first quarter and put the Lakers up 16-11 on his second 3-pointer with 6:36 left. While the Lakers may have picked it up on the defensive end by limiting opponents to 97.8 points per game, it would be best to take note of the teams they played.
Whether or not this is the truth, fans may never know, but it seems apparent that Russell got the message. No other guard has played 20 seasons in the league, no other player of Bryant’s size has worked over 47,000 career regular-season minutes, and in the age of seven-game first-round series, Kobe’s almost 8,700 postseason minutes (that’s 39 minutes a game) have taken a toll. Their net +/- with or without him is slightly better towards him being out of the game, but just by one point; not a really big difference.
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Kobe Bryant is very much nearing the end of the road. “We’re really brothers, we really want everybody to be successful”. Bryant will still have the same amount of minutes only less and yet not wear himself out completely. And if so, it may not just be because of the rebuilding mode tag the Lakers carry but the inability of Scott to work with a young team that was meant to help the Lakers establish a whole new roster for winning campaigns.
