The Los Angeles Lakers have confirmed All-Star guard Kobe Bryant will be medically evaluated for a possible return to the court once the team's current road trip end.
L.A. Times reporter Dave McMenamin reports the the team will reevaluate Bryant at that point and he could return to the court for the struggling franchise prior to next month's All-Star Game.
Bryant proved he's already in rare form verbally earlier this week when he criticized the league for what he called his evolution into a "finesse league."
"It's more of a finesse game now, it's more small ball, which personally I don't really care much for," Bryant told reporters on Monday while the Lakers were in Chicago to face the Bulls. "I like kind of smash-mouth, old-school basketball because that's what I grew up watching. Some of the flagrant fouls that I see called nowadays just makes me nauseous. You can't touch a guy without it being a flagrant foul."
In Bryant's mind, the sad part is he doesn't see things changing any time soon.
"Nowadays, literally anybody can get out there and get to the basket because you can't touch anybody," he told The Times. "Back then, guys put their hands on you, you had to have the skill to be able to go both ways, change directions and post up. You had to have midrange game because you didn't want to go all the way to the basket because you'd get knocked flat. Playing the game back then required much more skill."
So adamant was Bryant hat even current uptempo Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni wasn't spared some level of criticism.
"It's probably had an impact," he admitted to reporters.
In any event, Bryant told The Times he definitely sees himself returning to the court this season.
"There was [doubt] before I came back the first time because I didn't know how my Achilles' was going to respond to playing and change of directions," he said. "The [last] game in Memphis, I had a pretty good feel for it. I was getting back to being able to do what I normally could do. So I feel pretty confident about it. I did play that second half on a fractured leg and a torn Achilles."
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