2014 NBA Top 20: #8 Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers poses for a picture during media day at Toyota Sports Center on September 28, 2013 in El Segundo, California. (Getty Images)
17 years in the game, 5 NBA Championships, numerous league honours and overwhelming records. The Black Mamba has truly established himself as one of the greatest players to ever step out on the wood, and quite possibly the most skilled and watchable player to ever grace the league.
Kobe Bryant has gone through several gargantuan personal and professional battles during his time in the NBA, and at this stage of his legendary career, one would expect the struggles and the challenges to be kinder.
Reality check: The Black Mamba quite possibly looks ahead to what may be the most challenging campaign of his career. Following Dwight Howard’s decision to leave Los Angeles, and looking at the new recruits like Nick Young, Wesley Johnson and Chris Kaman, the Lakers roster is too thin and bereft of genuine star-power.
A 34-year old Pau Gasol and a 39-year old Steve Nash are maybe the saving grace of the second most successful franchise in NBA history. Add to that the insistence of Mike D’Antoni to deploy his system and get the veteran old legs of the Lakers to play his run-and-gun method, while paying little heed to defence and the Lakers physical limitations, you have a recipe for a total disaster.
Many believe that the Lakers will actually do as bad as 12th in the West. They assume it may be in the Lakers best interest to tank 2013-14, so as to try and get lucky in the draft of 2014. The Lakers also have sizeable cap-space in 2014 and with the number of big stars set to enter into the free-agent market, it just seems that Jim Buss led Lakers are looking to shape their roster for the next decade and this year is just a faux pas.
While all of the Lakers plans for 2014 may seem intriguing, one tends to forget that this is still the Black Mamba’s team; the man who at age 34 has adopted the new nickname of Vino, because like wine he believes he is just getting better with age.
27.3 ppg, 6.0 apg, 5.6 rpg, 1.4 spg, while shooting 46.3 % from the field. He was the provider and the facilitator on the offensive end, trying his best to get his teammates into the game and on the defensive end of the floor had to guard the likes of Kyrie Irving and Brandon Jennings, because Nash at age 39 just didn’t have the legs to keep up with the quicker and explosive young guards in the game.
At 34, he was by and far the best athlete in the Lakers team, and it was his insurmountable will and desire that saw the Lakers make the decisive push to earn a play-off spot. D’Antoni did run him to the ground by playing him an astounding 38.6 minutes/game and a stretch before his Achilles injury when he almost averaged close to 45 minutes/game.
Bryant did believe that he was conditioned for that kind of a work-load, but in a league where the likes of Gregg Popovich were sagacious enough to limit his 30-year and above stars to less than 32-minutes/game, D’Antoni was more than happy to ride on Bryant’s back and let him make the asinine sacrifices to get the Lakers into the pay-offs. In many ways, Bryant did save D’Antoni’s job and directed a lot of hatred away from the Lakers Organization and Jim Buss.
But this season will be different. Bryant has still a lot of Lakers expectations to stand up to, but for once it is his body and its needs that stand in the way. He is coming back from a career-threatening injury way ahead of schedule. Buss believes Bryant can make it to opening night. That makes it a rehabilitation of close to four and a half months for an injury that many doctors and physicians believe needs close to 8-9 months to fully recover.