Lakers’ Kobe Bryant: ‘I’m 70 in basketball years’

While Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players in basketball history, many are skeptical about how well the five-time NBA champion will perform this upcoming season.

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He’s suffered season-ending injuries in each of the past two seasons and will be 36 years old by the time the opening tipoff of the 2014-15 season takes place.

But more than that, Kobe has a ridiculous amount of basketball mileage to his name. The Los Angeles Lakers star ranks No. 13 all-time in total regular season minutes played with 45,567. He also ranks No. 3 all-time in total postseason minutes played with 8,641.

That’s a ton of basketball and that eventually can catch up to a player, which fuels the doubt about Bryant.

To Kobe’s credit, he’s not ignoring the impact of all the minutes he’s played throughout his illustrious 18-year-career, telling Sports Illustrated, “I’m 70 in basketball years.”

Presumably, the profile of Bryant in SI focuses on how plans to overcome his basketball age and prove his many doubters wrong. One has to give Kobe credit for all that he’s putting into this latest comeback.

But, even though the mythology around Bryant suggests one can’t count him out and if anyone could overcome injuries/aging it would be him, Father Time waits for nobody and it’s unlikely Kobe returns to an elite level of play.

Bryant appeared in just six games in the 2013-14 season before he suffered a tibial plateau fracture in his left knee.