Kobe Bryant sidelined indefinitely with a torn rotator cuff
Photo Credit: ESPN.com
Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant has suffered a torn right rotator cuff and is out indefinitely, the team announced Thursday afternoon. A timetable will be revealed in the next few days.
Bryant suffered the injury in the Lakers’ 96-80 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night. The shooting guard returned to the court after leaving the game with what was deemed to be a sore shoulder, but he clearly didn’t have full use of his right arm. He almost exclusively used his left hand for several minutes before he was finally subbed out of the game, and he headed straight to the locker room.
This is the third straight season Bryant has had a major injury. The 36-year-old tore his Achilles two seasons ago and then suffered a major knee injury last year. He has worked hard to come back from both of those injuries, but it’s clear his body is betraying him.
Bryant has struggled all season for a horrible Lakers team. While he’s averaging 22.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists, he’s shooting just 37.3 percent overall and 29.3 percent from three. Not helping matters was the fact that he was often overused early in the season, and he admitted to feeling the wear and tear on his body. Lakers head coach Byron Scott also admitted to playing Bryant too much, and the guard’s minutes had been scaled back in recent weeks.
But that didn’t stop yet another major injury, and one has to imagine Bryant won’t be back for the rest of this season. Retiring would probably be the best option for him in terms of his health, but he’s super competitive and still has $25 million coming to him next year, so it would be hard to see him walking away from that type of money.
Despite Bryant’s struggles, he’s still in line to start in the All-Star Game due to fan voting. That honor will now almost certainly go to James Harden, who should have been the starter anyway because he’s a top MVP candidate. Bryant’s injury also opens up another reserve guard spot, which will likely go to Klay Thompson.
As for the Lakers this season, this injury likely doesn’t mean much. Los Angeles is 12-31 and has been bad whether or not Bryant has been on the floor. The Lakers have gone 10-25 (17-18 against the spread, per VegasInsider.com) with him in the lineup and 2-6 (4-4 against the spread) without him, although the team has often functioned much better with him on the bench.
The preferred outcome this season for Los Angeles is a top five pick, otherwise the pick goes to the Phoenix Suns via the Steve Nash trade. So it would behoove the Lakers to keep losing games in order to secure a top pick that will come in handy when rebuilding the roster for a post-Bryant world.
