Kobe Bryant Injury: Lakers Star Must Rest or Face Serious Consequences

Kobe Bryant is battling a torn tendon in his shooting wrist. He's been playing through the pain so far, but Yahoo! Sports reports that it is still causing him significant pain on a daily basis.

Bryant is 33 years old right now and has a ton of wear and tear on his body. He's not 23 anymore, and shouldn't be playing through this much pain at this point of the season.

I understand that this NBA season is weird and compacted, but that doesn't mean Kobe should be risking hurting his wrist further on a nightly basis.

If I were Los Angeles Lakers head coach Mike Brown, I'd shut Bryant down for one to two weeks and give his wrist time to heal.

Missing a few games now is better than missing time when the Lakers are going to need him even more during the latter part of the season.

If he doesn't get some rest, it's only a matter of time before the wrist injury gets worse. The way Kobe plays, he ends up on the floor a lot, and every time he hits the ground, his injury has the potential to get worse.

Plus, if it's swelling and causing pain this much already, imagine how much worse it's going to get towards the end of the season. It could potentially get to the point that he can't move his wrist at all, which would make shooting a basketball nearly impossible.

So, Brown needs to assert his authority as head coach and make sure his star player doesn't play for a couple of weeks.

That way, not only will Kobe's wrist get healthier and make the pain more manageable, he'll be better off for a potential stretch run that the Lakers might face with a playoff berth on the line.

It would make sense to shut Kobe down whenever Andrew Bynum comes off his four-game suspension stemming from his hard foul on J.J. Barea in last year's playoffs. Then Bynum could pick up some of the scoring load the team would lose from Kobe, and the team wouldn't suffer too much.

Then in one to two weeks when Bryant returns, the Lakers will have a full roster that is ready to compete for a playoff spot in the Western Conference.