Kobe Bryant Will Be Byron Scott's Biggest Test as Los Angeles Lakers Coach

Byron Scott will face many challenges in his first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, but his biggest—by far—will be the delicate task of managing Kobe Bryant's workload.

Scott doesn't yet have a formal plan in place for the 36-year-old guard's playing time in the upcoming season, but he revealed a basic idea that just screams "trouble ahead" to A. Martinez of KPCC in Los Angeles:

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Yeah, Kobe’s his own man. We know how hard he works, we know how driven he is. But I think he’s at the point too where he’s so much more mature, and he understands that he only has a few more miles left on that body, you know, maybe two, maybe three years. And I think he’s probably more acceptable to accept the fact that you can’t practice every day. There might be some games where you can’t play this game or that game.

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That's the smart thing for Scott to say at this juncture. The logic behind resting a 17-year veteran coming off two significant injuries is sound in a vacuum.

But there are a couple of major problems with Scott's thinking.

The Indomitable Will of the Mamba

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First, for it to work, Scott will need a version of Bryant that has not previously existed.

So much of Bryant's greatness stems from his uncompromising attitude. He expects to do the impossible because, for a good chunk of his career, he pretty much did it.

Bryant has built (and earned) a voice so powerful that it drowns out just about everyone else's, including that of the coach. Both Mike Brown and Mike D'Antoni had plans to limit Bryant's playing time, and neither could implement a plan against the superstar's wishes, per Mark Medina of InsideSoCal.com:

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Both former coaches Mike Brown and Mike D’Antoni talked in recent seasons about needing to limit Bryant’s minutes both to ensure his long-term health and ease the burden on his workload. But overlooking Bryant’s 29.2 minutes he averaged last season in only six games, considering the playing time in previous seasons, including the campaigns in 2011-12 (38.5) and 2012-13 (38.6). Clearly, the ideal for Bryant not to log so much playing time often does not conform to the short-term pressures the Lakers face.

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You could argue that Bryant, now having come face to face with serious injuries that forced him to acknowledge basketball mortality, will be more amenable to Scott's plans than he was to Brown's or D'Antoni's.

Or, at the very least, maybe he won't mentally disintegrate Scott with a death stare.

Then again, Bryant's motivation to prove he can still get the job done at a star level will be stronger this year than ever. Holding back this edition of Bryant—the one so many of us believe is finished as an impact player—might be even harder than holding back the younger one.

Think about it: A guy whose consistent response to doubters has been to jut out that lower jaw and smash them is supposed to scale back his approach at a time when he knows everyone is expecting him to fail? If anything, Bryant will want to be on the court even more than ever.

Look, Scott's longstanding relationship with Bryant probably makes him the guy with the best chance to convince Kobe he should take it easy. Maybe he can manage the task better than his predecessors.

But hasn't Bryant earned the right not to be managed? You can't limit Bryant now. Not when he knows there's so little time left in his basketball life.

Let's Get Practical

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Because here's the other thing: What are you saving Bryant for? A title run in 2017?

Scott intends to lay out some serious expectations before the Lakers' 2014-15 season starts, and if they're to have even the faintest hint of realism attached, Bryant can't miss games.

"I’m going to walk into our locker room the first day of our meeting and say, ‘I want to win a championship,’" Scott told Medina in a piece for the Los Angeles Daily News.

How's that supposed to happen while the best player on the team is surrendering minutes to some combination of Nick Young and Wesley Johnson? Short answer: It can't.

Whatever limited success the Lakers had during Bryant's last healthy season was attributable to his superhuman efforts. These Lakers cannot win a championship—not even if Bryant turns in a prime season and plays heavy minutes. The team doesn't have enough talent, and the Western Conference is just too tough.

But if Bryant doesn't play a ton, talking about a championship becomes a joke. And even making the playoffs begins to seem far-fetched.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

It sounds crass to ask the Lakers and Scott what they're saving Bryant for. Obviously, everybody involved wants to assure Bryant remains healthy enough to lead a long and restriction-free post-basketball life. That's not what this is about.

L.A. is in a holding pattern for two years until Bryant's contract comes off the books, and it doesn't figure to be more than marginally competitive during that stopgap period. So if Scott and the Lakers are serious about saving Bryant for long-term reasons, I guess we're supposed to believe Bryant is in their plans as a 38-year-old.

Seems unlikely.

For the Lakers to do anything more than flirt with .500 this season, they need to get a little lucky—by which I mean somehow coax a whole lot of near-peak games and minutes out of Bryant. It's just the only way they'll be competitive.

There's risk involved, sure. Bryant could break down at any time.

But think of it this way: Resting Bryant this season is like taking a player out of the game who has three fouls in the second quarter. You do it to preserve him for the second half.

Except there is no second half for Bryant, and he's never been one to save his bullets for later anyway. This is the end of his career, and he alone has the ability to make this last year or two mean something for the Lakers, who'll just start fresh in two years anyway.

Good Luck, Coach

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That's all a long way of saying Bryant is going to want to play as much as he possibly can because he knows now that he can't play forever. Plus, he has everything to prove and a history of maniacal devotion to being the best.

How ridiculously tough will it be to keep that guy on the bench, especially when having him on the floor is the only way to field a competitive team?

Byron Scott is about to find out.