Kobe Bryant injured his calf in the Los Angeles Lakers preseason game about two weeks ago and at the time it was believed to be minor. Bryant was hoping to get back to play by the end of the preseason but that never happened and he just got back to practicing on Sunday. The Lakers open up their season on Wednesday October 28th and the plan is to have Kobe available and that seems likely based on his reported performance in Sunday's practice, according to Joey Ramirez of NBA.com.
For his part head coach Byron Scott has been confident all along that Kobe would be able to play when the season started but he also said there was no guarantees. Bryant was held out of practices and games for the better part of two weeks with what is being called a bruised calf. Bryant sustained the injury when he was driving to the hoop and got kneed in the back of his leg.
On Saturday Bryant was only able to get up some shots but he was not cleared for any sort of running. On Sunday though he came out and told Scott that he felt good and he participated in a 5-on-5 scrimmage which he reportedly dominated. Things were going smoothly in practice until one of Kobe's teammates (he went unnamed) talked trash to him and that set Kobe off as from then on he led his team to a win.
It was just a scrimmage in practice that would typically be meaningless but the fact that Kobe was able to play full speed and dominate is great news for the Lakers. After almost two weeks on the sidelines it was fair to wonder whether this injury would linger and keep him out for the beginning of the regular season but with the full practice it appears that he is on track for Wednesday night.
Bryant is entering his 20th season in the NBA and he has struggled with injuries over the past few seasons. Each of the last three years Kobe has had a season ending injury and the Lakers are doing everything they can to try and avoid that this year. The Lakers are an interesting team as they have a lot of new pieces and it is hard to know what to expect from them but if they have a healthy Kobe who is engaged and being a team player this could be a dangerous Lakers team and right now it appears the 37 year old is pretty close to full strength.
