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Kobe Bryant vows to play in each of his final nine NBA games
Kobe Bryant won’t be playing NBA basketball in three weeks. If that’s a tough one to process, understand that you’re not alone.
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The retiring Los Angeles Lakers star has just nine games left entering Monday night, the final tally in what has been a frustrating season in the wake of what has to have been a miserable few years. Bryant, who has seen his last three campaigns finish early due to season-ending surgeries, appears to rounding into home with a clean slate of health for the first time in years.
As healthy as one can be, we should point out, after over 57,000 career regular season and playoff minutes. After a season spent battling shoulder, knee and finger injuries. After sharing a locker room with Nick Young for two years.
Following his 13th consecutive appearance in a loss to the Washington Wizards on Sunday, Bryant threw the gauntlet down. From Baxter Holmes at ESPN Los Angeles:
Nine games remain in Kobe Bryant's 20-season NBA career, and the Los Angeles Lakers star plans to play every one of them.
"Yes, unless something drastic happens, God forbid," Bryant said Sunday after his team's 101-88 loss to the Washington Wizards at Staples Center.
"It's pretty crazy to think. I've got four home games left? That's kind of crazy," Bryant said. "I didn't realize that until right before tipoff -- five home games left, and now it's four. That's pretty crazy."
Starting on Monday in Salt Lake City, Bryant will have five road games to work through – including trips to New Orleans and Oklahoma City (two teams that weren’t in the league when Kobe debuted back in 1996), a “road” contest against the Clippers, and a game against Houston and best buddy Dwight Howard.
Home contests, which Bryant mostly sat out for a long stretch midseason in order to save his legs for the farewell tour abroad, include games against the Heat, Celtics, Clippers and one final “goodbye” against the Utah Jazz on April 13. With the Lakers already eliminated from the playoff picture, that contest will act as the last time we see Kobe Bryant in uniform.
That’s unless he changes his mind about retirement, of course, something always worth musing about when it comes to athletes both legendary and lamentable. Unlike Michael Jordan’s two farewells in Chicago, the final one coming after watching as team management basically rubbed its hands in giddy anticipation of getting a chance to prove they could do it without MJ (prior to that sham press conference begging him back), the Lakers would happily bring Bryant back for another go-round.
This is the team that just paid him over $48 million for, let’s be honest, some truly awful basketball over the last two years, and that return would be a wonderful way to save face if the Lakers strike out in the free agent market yet again.
There is always the question as to whether or not Bryant’s presence would act as a sticking point for any potential free agent pickups, but though the Lakers have an enviable young core (with the potential to add another top lottery pick this June), with such a slim free agent class this summer you never tend to know with this oddly-situated, family-run organization.
Bryant’s season-ending promise puts a needed end to one of the more uncomfortable facets of what has been a rather uneasy season for all involved. His understandable habit of missing home games in order to steel those knees in anticipation for a trip all the way to Memphis.
Some fans, weirdly, did not catch on. From the New York Times:
“Why wouldn’t you want to play as many games as possible for the home crowd, the people that have always been there to support you?” said Absalon Barraza, who flew in from Houston on the morning of March 1 for the Lakers’ game that night against the Nets. When he found out Bryant would not be playing, Barraza called the airline to change his return flight, went straight back to the airport and flew home that same night.
Wait, what?
I get that you wanted to see Kobe, and that a Lakers/Nets game is usually drudgery of the highest order. Anger can get the best of fans sometimes, leading to rash decisions, but you’d rather stare at the back of an airplane seat rest than watch D’Angelo Russell score a career-high 39 points in a Laker win? Bandwagon Kobe fans will not be missed.
(Note: Bandwagon Kobe fans denying the existence of Bandwagon Kobe fans may, in fact, be Bandwagon Kobe fans themselves.)
Kobe Bryant had to do it this way, and while it may come off as a little unseemly that the guy paid nearly $80 million over the last three seasons (for, if all goes according to plan, 107 games) had to skip out on home dates, this was the only way he was ever going to make it to April 13. And April 13, for someone who had to limp off the court at the end of 2013, 2014, and 2015, meant a whole heck of a lot to Kobe Bryant. Even if he missed 64 percent of his shots and 16 games in getting there. Even if the Lakers will rank last in the West.
Only two of Bryant’s final games will be nationally televised, as the league has even skipped over the Lakers’ “home and home” with the Clippers, and the contest against Kevin Durant’s Thunder. Dwyane Wade’s last trip to Los Angeles will be featured on NBA TV on Wednesday, and ESPN will carry Kobe’s final game against Utah. For what feels like the first time in his career – for a guy that was drafted onto a championship contender fielding Shaquille O’Neal – Bryant will do most of his business on League Pass.
The harrumphing cynic will applaud, pointing to Kobe’s role on the league’s worst defense and second-worst offense, but in many ways this is a shame. Entire lifetimes have been lived knowing nothing but “Kobe Bryant, NBA star,” and while we haven’t seen a lot of Kobe since he tore his Achilles back in 2013, the idea of this league without the man will take some getting used to.
It’s going to be a very strange two and a half weeks. At least Kobe Bryant will be around for all of it.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
