1/28/15
Sadly it looks like it’s time to ask the question is Kobe Bryant’s career over? Bryant is scheduled to have season ending rotator cuff surgery today. Bryant’s 19th NBA season will end with him playing in 35 games. This is coming off a 2013-2014 season where he played in just six games. Bryant almost played the entire season in 2012-2013 appearing in 78 games, but the season before 2011-2012 he was limited to 52 games. The injuries are starting to pile up and you have to wonder if it’s too much for Bryant to over come. He’s bounced back from an Achilles and a knee injury; now we add the rotator cuff to that list.Bryant was averaging 22.3 points per game this season, but that’s down from 27.3 in the 2012-2013 season and he averaged 27.9 in 2011-2012. His field goal percentage this season is .373 down from .463 in 2012-2013 season and his shooting percentage was .430 in the 2011-2012 season. Bryant is also shooting .293 from behind the three point line this season. The Los Angeles Lakers have managed to cut Bryant’s minutes a little this season to 34.5 per game, but is the wear and tear of a long NBA career catching up with him. Bryant has appeared in 16 All-Star games winning the MVP award four times. He won the league MVP award following the 2007-2008 season and also won back to back finals MVP awards in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. Bryant is 3rd among players in career points scored with 32,482. Bryant has proven people wrong before coming back from injury and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him playing next season. What I don’t want to see is Bryant come back next season and not be in a Lakers uniform. While Bryant has been able to live up to the Michael Jordan comparisons I don’t want to see him follow in Jordan’s footsteps and end up finishing his career playing somewhere he shouldn’t be. Bryant turns 37 years old in August and would he come back for a farewell type of tour in 2015-2016. With every team in the NBA playing more than half of their regular season games to this point let’s look at the lower seeded playoff teams and who might get left out. In the Western conference this should be interesting as right now the Oklahoma City Thunder are on the outside looking into the playoffs. The Thunder are 10th right now in the West; three games behind the 8th seeded Phoenix Suns. Phoenix finds itself two games ahead of the 9th seeded New Orleans Pelicans, but just three games behind the 7th seeded and defending champion San Antonio Spurs. The Dallas Mavericks would be seeded 6th, but they are only four games ahead of the Suns and just 1 game ahead of the Spurs. This should make the second half of the season interesting as five teams will try to fit into three playoff spots. Could you imagine the 1st round of the Western conference playoffs without San Antonio, Dallas or Oklahoma City. The bottom seeds in the Eastern conference may shake out the same way just with worse records. The Charlotte Hornets are holding onto the 8th seed, but they are just one game ahead of the Brooklyn Nets and three games ahead of the Boston Celtics. Charlotte also finds itself just one game behind the Miami Heat who are the 7th seed right now. Charlotte is also just four games behind the 6th seeded Milwaukee Bucks. Can Charlotte hold onto a playoff spot with Kemba Walker being out possible for the rest of the season? Walker had surgery on a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee and may be back in six weeks. Walker had been Charlotte’s best player this year, and during the month of January was averaging 23.6 points per game, better than his 18.8 average for the season. So holding onto the 8th seed or even a playoff spot with Walker out might be tough for Charlotte to do. The NHL had its All-Star game on Saturday night where Team Toews beat Team Foligno 17-12; yes that’s right there where 29 combined goals scored. The game didn’t look anything at all like an actual NHL game. There where eight goals scored combined in the 1st period alone. Only two out of the 11 games played last night had eight or more goals scored total. If you’re an NHL goaltender why would you go to the All-Star game if you made the team. It’s not like anyone if going to play any defense in front of you and each team might as well just skate six players a side and leave the goals empty. I didn’t really watch much of the game and just flipped by it a couple of times. These type of All-Star games don’t interest me. The game was played in Columbus and Ryan Johansen of the home town Blue Jackets was the games MVP Johansen did have a good weekend; not only was he the #1 pick in the All-Star fantasy draft he also was in the Breakaway competition during All-Star Saturday night. In the Breakaway Challenge Johansen on his first attempt donned an Ohio State football jersey in honor of the national championship won by the Buckeyes on January 12th. On his next try he brought out 7-year-old Cole Vogt, the son of Blue Jackets trainer Mike Vogt, to score a goal and wrapped up his set with a “Flying V” formation from the Mighty Ducks movies with the help of his teammates. The fantasy draft I enjoy and I thought it was an innovative idea for a league that is considered 4th of the big four sports. The Skills Challenge is fun and interesting to see the players do the different events, but the game itself it terrible. I’m not sure if it’s as bad as the NBA All-Star game or the NFL Pro Bowl, but it’s right up there with them. Sadly there’s no way to change this type of game as star player aren’t going to check and bang with the chance of getting hurt and costing their actual team a chance to win the Stanley Cup. I wonder if moving the game to the end of the season would make it different, but with the NHL season as long as it is that’s not really an answer either. For me though I can’t watch these types of games; can you?
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