Will Kobe Bryant and LA Lakers Benefit from Less Attention on His 2nd Return?

Kobe Bryant could be returning to action soon for the Los Angeles Lakers. The story’s getting some coverage but not at the epic level that accompanied the superstar’s journey back from a torn Achilles tendon earlier this season. It’s not a bad thing for the team or for Bryant.

On January 10, Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times relayed a sign of hope:

Coach Mike D’Antoni said Friday that he hopes that Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant can play January 28 against Indiana, right after the Lakers’ seven-game road trip, their longest of the season. Speaking to reporters at the Lakers training facility in El Segundo, D'Antoni said the two stars would return "about the same time. Hopefully both of them are ready."

A week later, Bresnahan was writing a less definitive headline, for the Times, that “Bryant says he plans to play again this season.” No specific timetable was attached this time.

In the same article, Bryant himself seemed subdued and reflexive when discussing the difficulty of watching the Lakers losing season:

I try to detach from it as much as possible. I feel like [I'm] taking… Bruce Banner, and putting him in the middle of a bar fight and hope he doesn't become the Hulk. That's what I feel like watching these games. I mentally take myself someplace else. I think about sitting on the beach. Try to think about something else.

Bruce Banner—the Incredible Hulk’s doppelganger. Recent photos of Bryant show a nearly expressionless man, watching from the bench. You wonder what’s lurking inside—this is one of the most intensely driven athletes in modern sports. He has to be doing a slow boil.

Over the past week, there hasn’t been as much breaking news about a possible return.



If you read a recent report from Mike Trudell for Lakers.com, however, there seems to be at least some...

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