Please, bring me up to speed if I’ve missed something, but the last I checked Los Angeles Lakers’ shooting guard Kobe Bryant was one of the NBA’s elite players.
All it took for people to begin writing him off was a gruesome Achilles injury that ended his season and has kept him from taking part in team basketball activities thus far in this preseason. According to reports earlier this week, Bryant still can’t push off his surgically repaired ankle, which has put his Opening Night status in doubt with less than two weeks till tipoff, but nonetheless, why do people think he’s at his end?
Last season, at age 34, his seventeenth in the NBA, Bryant averaged 27.3 points, 6.0 assists and 5.6 rebounds per game – all of which are above his career averages. He also played roughly two minutes more per game than his career average, coming in a 38.6 minutes per game.
Bryant is still one of the top five scorers in the league today. With the game on the line, there’s no one else I’d rather give the ball to. Not LeBron, not Kevin Durant. No one.
His instincts are unrivaled, his passion unequaled. Get ready for one exciting season, NBA fans. Kobe is on a mission to prove his doubters wrong and bring a title back to Los Angeles.