The Los Angeles Lakers couldn't save Kobe Bryant from himself, and that could be the reason why he's sidelined for an additional six weeks because of injury, according to a former Lakers Hall of Famer.
Jerry West, the man who brought Kobe to the Lakers when West was Los Angeles' general manager, recently spoke about Bryant's injury on the Dan Patrick Radio Show last week, the Los Angeles Times reported.
He told Patrick that he thought Bryant wasn't close to his old self when he returned from an Achilles tendon tear on Dec. 8, just eight months after the injury took place.
"Just watching him when he was playing, to me he didn't look like the same player," said West, who now is an executive in the Golden State Warriors organization. "He hadn't gotten to where he was real explosive. I think his shooting will always be there, but I've often wondered if he would have just rested another couple of months, would we have seen a different Kobe Bryant?
"But knowing him, that's not ever going to happen."
When Bryant came back, he tried to be more of a facilitator, but he was averaging just 13.8 points per game, just more than half of his 25.5-point-per-game career average. He also averaged 6.3 assists and 5.7 turnovers in those six games back.
"Can you protect him from him?" Patrick asked.
"Well, him, no," West said. "You can't. ... He's pretty much set in his ways. He doesn't take no for an answer, but watching him play, he didn't look like Kobe Bryant to me."
West added that he'd read about one doctor's opinion that the knee injury came about from Bryant favoring the left leg with the repaired Achilles' tendon.
"He had a serious injury," West said. "I don't care how much you rehab, somewhere along the way your body is going to react in different ways," West said. "He has played so many minutes, and he's put so much effort into it, it does take its toll."
Patrick came out and said later in the interview that Bryant's knee injury might actually help him in the long run because it will give him more time to recover from the Achilles injury.
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