What You Need to Know About Kobe Bryant’s Knee Injury

News broke late Thursday that Kobe Bryant has another injury to his leg.

The Los Angeles Lakers' Twitter account gave us the bad news. He was diagnosed with a fracture to the lateral tibial plateau:



The first thing we should do is understand where this is and how the injury happened. The lateral tibial plateau is the top of the tibia, or shinbone. If you go just below your knee and to the outside, you'll likely feel a rounded bump or knot. That's the plateau. As you can see, it is an exposed area.

Many fractures to this area are the result of collisions or falls. The other place this is normally seen is in auto-pedestrian incidents, giving rise to this being called a "bumper fracture," for obvious reasons. 

None of those are true exactly for Bryant. This NBA.com video shows the likely incident where his knee was injured: 



Bryant twisted, ran into the defender and then fell. It's unclear if the plateau contacted the floor or whether it was the twisting stress that may have overtaxed the bone. Either way, the result is a small confined break.

Minor fractures with no displacement are relatively easy to heal. There's no surgery necessary, just a period of non-weight bearing and therapy. With larger fractures, there may need to be a re-section of the bone or a fixation. 

Since Bryant was able to continue and joked about the situation after to Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding, it's reasonable to assume this is a very minor fracture. Bryant wasn't in obvious pain, though the likelihood is that there was swelling overnight, which is very common. That led to scans and this diagnosis. Regardless, Bryant did no further damage by playing through it. 

One of the biggest complications for this type of injury doesn't apply to Bryant at all. Usually, there is meniscal damage with this, but Bryant doesn't have any meniscus left, which ha...

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