Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant says he would shut down for the season if the team were to ask him to, perhaps saving him for a better team next season.
Coming off a career-high 17 assists in a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers Thursday night, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant told reporters he would be willing to shut down for the season if the team decided that is what is in its best interest.
“Seriously, I understand,” Bryant told reporters, via ESPN Los Angeles. “I understand. It’s my responsibility to be ready every single night and when I step out there on the floor to give it my all.
“If they want to shut me down, if they decide to sit me out, I will do what’s asked of me. It’s that simple.”
The 36-year-old played only six games last season, breaking a bone in his knee while attempting to come back from a torn Achilles tendon.
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Bryant has sat out six of the Lakers’ last 13 games due to fatigue after first-year Lakers coach Byron Scott played him a ridiculous 35.5 minutes per game in the team’s first 27 games.
Yes, he’s the team’s best player, but (a) he’s not 26 anymore and (b) the supporting cast makes the 2004-05 Los Angeles squad of Chucky Atkins, Caron Butler, Chris Mihm, Brian Grant, Brian Cook and Tierre Brown—when Bryant actually was 26—look like the 1960s Boston Celtics by comparison.
It’s not unprecedented for a team to shut a star player down at such point all home was lost.
David Robinson, the former MVP center with the San Antonio Spurs, missed the first month of the 1996-97 season, broke his foot in the sixth game after he returned, and missed the rest of the year.
There was some buzz that Robinson could have come back for the final 10 games or so that year, but with the Spurs on their way to a 20-62 mark, “The Admiral” did not return.
As Benjamin Hoffman of The New York Times points out in this piece from two months ago, yes, the Spurs wound up getting the No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, selected Wake Forest star Tim Duncan and have been a title contender for most of the last two decades.
But nothing is guaranteed, not even trying to tank your way to the top of the draft. The Spurs didn’t have the best chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick in 1997, or even the second best.
The Vancouver Grizzlies had the worst record in the league at 14-68 and the Boston Celtics were next at 15-67.
In the pre-lottery NBA, those two teams would have had a coin flip to determine the order of the top two picks.
Vancouver, with the best chance of landing the overall pick, didn’t get selected in the top three of the lottery. The Spurs—with the third-best chance—won the lottery, followed by the Philadelphia 76ers (fourth-best chance) and the Celtics, with the Grizzlies falling to the No. 4 overall spot.
While many credit the Spurs for tanking and getting Duncan, that brush over history fails to take into account two very relevant points:
- The Spurs did not have the best chance of winning the lottery.
- The Spurs had other huge injury issues in 1996-97.
Yes, Robinson was the headliner for missing 76 games. But Greg Anderson—he of the 3.9 points and 5.5 rebounds in 20.2 minutes per game—was the only San Antonio player who appeared in all 82 games.
Cory Alexander, a reserve who averaged 18.2 minutes a night, was next with 80 games.
Chuck Person missed the entire season after back surgery. Charles Smith, counted on to be the power forward, played in only 17 games because of an arthritic knee. Sean Elliott, the starter at small forward, missed more than half the season with tendinitis in his knee.
All of a sudden the Spurs were starting guards Avery Johnson and Vinnie Del Negro with immortals such as Carl Herrera, Will Perdue and a 37-year-old Dominique Wilkins.
So if the Lakers want to shut down Bryant in hopes of creating some lottery magic, more power to them. But ask Philadelphia general manager Sam Hinkie how that’s been working out for his team so far.
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