Lakers trainer: Kobe aiming for start of season return

So much for all that premature talk about Kobe Bryant retiring.

The morning after the Achilles tendon pop heard 'round Laker Nation, team trainer Gary Vitti said the timetable for Bryant's return is six to nine months and that he is aiming to return for the start of the 2013-14 regular season.
"That's the plan," Vitti said, according to the team's Twitter account.

Bryant, who shared his deepest thoughts on the matter by way of Facebook late Friday night, tweeted a picture of his MRI today as well.

Vitti, who is in his 30th season with the team, said Bryant suffered a third-degree rupture of the tendon. Surgery is scheduled for today at 1 p.m.

Vitti was also quick to dispute the much talked-about notion that Bryant's excessive playing time may have led to the injury.

"Some of its just bad luck," Vitti said. "The stuff out there about Kobe… to say he was injured because he played 48 (minutes) is a stretch."

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak was also quick to address questions about whether the team might use its amnesty clause on Bryant's contract, saying it was something that had not been discussed. If they didn't anticipate him playing for most of next season, it would be a way to preserve $30.4 million in salary cap space while planning for his possible re-signing when he becomes a free agent in summer 2014. Bryant would still be paid on his contract.

Bryant averaged 45.6 minutes in the last seven games, with the Lakers going 6-1 and Bryant averaging 28.9 points (42.4% shooting), 8.4 assists, 7.3 rebounds and 3.4 turnovers. The Lakers, who are one game up on Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference but don't have the tiebreaker with the Jazz, still have a playoff push to finish without Bryant.

They host San Antonio on Sunday and then host Houston on Wednesday in the regular-season finale. The Jazz play at Minnesota on Monday and at Memphis on Wednesday.

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What Kobe's probable Achilles tear means for his future

Kobe Bryant was in no mood to answer the only question that mattered, and no one — not even a Boston Celtics fan — could blame him.

Yet as the Los Angeles Lakers star stood there in the Staples Center locker room with teary eyes discussing his night of ill fortune, how he heard his Achilles tendon pop late in the fourth quarter and how this was the toughest moment of his transcendent career, the question eventually came.

"So this isn't the last game that we'll see you play?" a reporter asked after the Lakers downed Golden State to keep their playoff hopes alive.

"Really? Really?" he shot back before making light of the moment.
Yes, Kobe, this is really happening.

Bryant will have an MRI on Saturday to, as the Lakers put it in the news release, "confirm the diagnosis" before later having surgery. The timing, make no mistake, couldn't be more torturous for the 34-year-old who had hinted so many times next season would likely be his last. As one could predict when it comes to Bryant, he hardly sounded like someone who was entertaining the notion that this could be the end.

"(I was) upset and dejected and thinking about this mountain, man, to overcome," he told reporters. "I mean this is a long process. I wasn't sure I could do it. Then your kids walk in, and you're like, 'You know, I've got to set an example. Daddy's going to be fine. I'm going to do it.'

"I can hear (the doubters) already, and it's pissing me off right now thinking about it."
Beyond the fact that the Lakers will now attempt to sneak into the playoffs without him, there's the reality that — based on a brutal body of evidence from NBA players in the past — he may not return until midway through the season that was his supposed swan song. As the Miami Heat's LeBron James tweeted late Friday night, Bryant has played through so much pain that a comeback wouldn't surprise.

But given that Bryant is as diligent a worker and quick a healer as there is in the professional sports world, it's not a matter of whether he can come back as much as it is whether there will be any ripple effect of the injury on his retirement plans. Or, for that matter, the Lakers plans as they pertain to him.

Bryant has one season left on his contract (worth $30.4 million), and would likely return just as the Lakers are facing a free agency period in the summer of 2014 that could have the likes of King James himself on the market. What's more, one has to wonder how center and free-agent-to-be Dwight Howard will assess his situation with this drastically-changed Lakers landscape. Before Bryant's injury, all signs had been pointing to Howard wanting to re-sign with the Lakers.

According to Dr. Asheesh Bedi on the website, SportsMD.com, the typical return from an Achilles tear and surgery is between six and nine months. Bryant mentioned during his postgame discussion with reporters that he'll be doing homework on athletes who have suffered an Achilles tear and, one can assume, proceed to push his way back faster than every man and woman on that list. His goal going forward should be to channel his inner Dominique Wilkins.

As documented in a comprehensive study of Achilles injuries in the NBA by analyst Kevin Pelton (who's now with ESPN), the Atlanta Hawks star tore his Achilles at the age of 32, then returned to play his way onto two more All-Star teams before retiring at the age of 39. The what-not-to-do blueprint comes courtesy of Detroit Pistons great Isiah Thomas, who was forced into early retirement at the age of 32 after tearing his Achilles. More recently, Los Angeles Clippers guard Chauncey Billups, who was 35 at the time, returned 10 months after tearing his Achilles on Feb. 8, 2012.