Kobe Bryant, in what increasingly seems to be his final season in the NBA, would like to suit up for all 82 regular season games.
Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott, who wants to avoid last season’s mistakes, isn’t so sure it’s such a good idea for The Black Mamba to add that much more wear-and-tear on his 37-year-old body.
Kobe has told Byron he wants to play all 82 games. But Byron told him today that maybe they should think twice about it.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) November 9, 2015
Lakers have 17 back-to-backs this season, starting with Tuesday at Miami and Wednesday at Orlando. How many Kobe sits is up in the air.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) November 9, 2015
Scott wants to sit down with Bryant—who is logging 29.2 minutes a night, well below his 34.5 average last season—and re-think his playing time going forward.
Per the LA Times:
“That’s a grind, to try to play all 82,” Scott said Monday after the Lakers practiced without Bryant, who was given the day off. “We’re going to talk again.” […] The way Scott described it, Bryant is eager to play them all, whether in Charlotte, Toronto or Boston.
“He said, ‘Coach, this might be my last year. I want to see if I could play every game that I can play,'” Scott said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’m good with that.’ And then getting here [Monday] morning, I was like, ‘You know what, maybe we better talk again.’ […] I know how he feels and I understand that but my objective is to get him to play this whole season and that might mean missing some games just so he could get through the whole year.”
Bryant, 37, sat out 123 of a possible 164 games the last two seasons because of injuries. He has played in all six this season, averaging 16.5 points but making only 32% of his shots and leaning heavily on three-point attempts that aren’t falling. […] “I’m really relying on him to kind of tell me how he feels body-wise and energy-wise,” Scott said. “He’s always been pretty honest with me about that. Sometimes he’ll say he feels like you-know-what and other times he’ll say, ‘I feel good.'”
