Kobe Bryant: Grading Lakers Star Through Roller-Coaster Early Season

Kobe Bryant has had an up and down, roller-coaster year already, and we're only seven games into the Lakers season!

Even his physical situation is a roller coaster! His knee has him rejuvenated, but then his wrist gets injured and he has a torn ligament.

It's time to give him an early report card and grade him game by game. I'll be taking into consideration his injury situation, as well as his intangibles in each game. At the end I'll give his GPA.

Game 1: Chicago

This was the first game that Bryant played with the wrist injury, and there was a lot of concern about whether he was going to be able to play.

Bryant came out playing much better than anyone expected, and through most of the game it looked as if he would lead the Lakers to victory, even with Andrew Bynum suspended. Bryant had 28 points, seven boards and six assists.

The Bulls charged back, though, and in part it was because of Bryant, who forced a bad pass that Luol Deng picked off. It was Bryant's eighth turnover of the game.

Bryant followed up that mistake with a forced shot through three Bulls defenders that didn't make it out of the arms that were in his face. Deng got the block, but if he hadn't had it, Taj Gibson or Omer Asik would have.

In the end Bryant gets some credit for playing well through the first 47 minutes of the game, but just as he gets rave reviews when he carries the team to victory, he has to shoulder the blame (and did, to his credit) when he leads them to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Grade: C+

Game 2: Sacramento

The Lakers' second game didn't go nearly as well as the Chicago game. Frankly, they were never really in this one.

Kobe's overall numbers weren't so bad, as he scored 29 points while adding six assists and five boards; however, the 10-of-24 night from the field wasn't so great.

Still, 29 points is 29 points, and he went 9-of-10 from the line. He also took better care of the ball in the game, only turning it over twice.

Grade: C

Game 3: Utah

This was easily Bryant's best game of the season to that point. The Lakers won the game handily, and that had everything to do with his outstanding play.

On the game Bryant had 26 points and was 8-of-17 from the field, including 3-of-5 from the arc. He added eight boards and five dimes.

When the Lakers absolutely needed a win, the Black Mamba was at his most lethal.

Grade: A

Game 4: New York

Bryant is one of those guys that is always looking for a reason to get some extra motivation, and the visit from the much-hyped Knicks seemed to be reason enough for him.

He had an outstanding shooting night from the field, hitting on 10 of 17 shots for 28 points, and added six assists and four boards.

The end result was a 99-82 shellacking of the Knicks in the Lakers' final game without Andrew Bynum.

On the downside, Bryant did have five turnovers, which lowers his grade just a tad.

Grade: A-

Game 5: Denver

In the first game of a back-to-back against the Nuggets, Kobe didn't shoot well, but he did a lot of other things well.

He was only 6-of-18 from the field, including missing on all five of his threes. On the other hand, he had 10 rebounds, nine assists and 17 points.

People have probably overreacted to the shooting percentage here. Yes, Bynum was shooting better and Kobe took away touches from Bynum and all of that, but sometimes people tend to oversimplify the game of basketball.

Shots open up for Bynum because of Kobe. They don't if he's not shooting. In the end you get a near triple-double with a ridiculous amount of criticism. It's not a great game, but it's better than horrible. There were other redeemable qualities to it.

Grade: C-

Game 6: Denver

In the second of back-to-back games against Denver, Bryant once again had a horrible shooting night, hitting on only six of 28 shots, scoring only 16 points. He added six turnovers and had only four assists and two rebounds.

The game was an unmitigated disaster. Kobe flunked.

Grade: F

Game 7: Houston

Kobe Bryant has a pink slip with the Houston Rockets' name on it now. He absolutely owned them last night, scoring 37 points on 29 shot attempts, adding eight boards and six assists.

It was almost as though Houston was the innocent victims of Bryant's rage at the media for calling him out for "shooting too much" in the previous two games. His true shooting percentage on the night was .561, just barely lower than Andrew Bynum's .567.

The Lakers won the game going away, and that was because of the play of Bryant, who had his best game of the season.

Grade: A+

This brings Kobe's GPA on the season to 2.57, or about a C+ average. On the whole, while it's been up and down for the Lakers star this year, it comes out to a slightly above average season by Kobe standards. Considering the wrist injury, things could be a lot worse.