Kobe Bryant has been working harder than most 36 year old basketball players do. In fact, at 36 years old, Kobe plays 34.8 minutes per game and is at 21 in the NBA for most minutes played and is the oldest player in the top 25, followed by Pau Gasol who showed he still has game at 34 last night, but is by far the oldest and has the most miles on his body.
At this point, Kobe has 46,681 total regular season minutes played in his career. He’s been playing solid so far, averaging 23 points per game, 5.6 rebounds per game and 5.3 assists per game and is taking a more facilitator role for his Lakers.
Recently, Kobe has missed some time for the Lakers due to ‘rest’, including a Sunday night premiere matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers which means Kobe has missed 3 of the last 4 games for the Lakers.
Of course you would expect Kobe to want to take a break, but his coach, Byron Scott, is taking the blame for Kobe’s possible ‘overuse’ earlier this season when Kobe had to do it all for Los Angeles. Scott talked about this going into the Lakers game against the Trail Blazers.
The following from Kurt Helin of NBC’s Probasketballtalk.
“Just my feeling I wanted to give him another day of rest,” Scott said.
“I thought his workload was too much,” Scott said looking back at those first 27 games. “He had a (minutes) number, my number was higher but his number was right, you know, when I look back at it. We cut those numbers down and I think his efficiency has been so much better, in terms of how he’s been able to play.
“The beginning, us getting on the same page and me getting to know him, what he could take and what he could stand as a minutes standpoint on a night to night basis was something that I had to get used to. We both got a real good feel now and we just got to go from this point on. Overall, he’s proven he’s got a lot left in the tank.”
Scott said he got fooled by his eyes.
“I didn’t take into serious consideration him missing almost a whole year and now getting back and playing,” he said before his Lakers faced Portland. “I should have figured out that would take a little time. But watching his workouts and watching what great shape he was in I think I got a little too confident, expecting that he could handle those type of minutes. And like I said, I was wrong….
“You may think it’s not a lot — if it’s a minute or two or three minutes, it doesn’t make much of a difference — but in the long run it does.”
The problem with the Lakers early on was the fact that the Lakers had NO clue what was going on with the offense. Kobe found himself having games where he attempted over 20 shots a game and being the only one that was attemtpting to create.
As of late though, Kobe has worked in more of a facilitator role for his team and is working in different guys to score. Just look at the numbers for Jeremy Lin, Nick Young, Carlos Boozer, Jordan Hill and Ed Davis for during the month of January, the 5 games the Lakers have played so far.
Either way, the way that Kobe has molded his game to help out his teammates and take a load off his legs and how much he does, seems to help.
