Bryant’s Torn Tendon Ends His Season and Sets Off Questions for Lakers
In retrospect, it was as if the last six games, in which Kobe Bryant played all but 14 minutes, were leading to something as inevitable as it was wrenching.
In the 45th minute of the next game, the Los Angeles Lakers’ 118-116 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday, Bryant went down in his tracks as he started driving to his left against Harrison Barnes.
Bryant, 34, had ruptured his left Achilles’ tendon. To that moment, he had scored 10 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter, and he added 2 more on free throws after he was injured. But less than 18 hours after the injury, he had surgery Saturday to repair the tear.
He is expected to miss six to nine months. Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak called a return for the opener next season “a reasonable goal.”
“His spirits were good,” said Kupchak, who visited Bryant at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic before his surgery. “Certainly markedly different from last night when his eyes were red.”
Kupchak added: “He’s proactive in all ways. You wouldn’t expect him to wait a week or two” to have surgery.
“When I got the phone call that he wanted to do it today, I wasn’t a bit surprised,” Kupchak said.
In an already tumultuous transition in which the questions have only mounted for the Lakers — from their late drive toward the No. 8 seed for the playoffs to their hopes of regaining their marquee status — Bryant’s injury brings more uncertainty.
Will his injury affect the free-agency decision of Dwight Howard, whose contract expires July 1?
What about Bryant’s career as a Laker, given that his contract expires in 2014?