Kobe Bryant's Patience Will Be Tested with Inexperienced Los Angeles Lakers
The 2014-15 season could be an exhaustive exercise for Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, a test of both his physical health and mental fortitude.
Scarier still is the fact that might qualify as a best-case scenario for the 36-year-old. If he isn't engaged in a lengthy battle with his body and Father Time, he might have succumbed to one—or both—as he did while missing all but six games of the Lakers' brutal 2013-14 campaign.
Either way this season, his 19th in the NBA, promises to be an 82-game test of his endurance. And his supporting cast, littered with injury risks, unproven commodities and past-their-prime veterans, won't likely make his challenge any easier.
Not without the right Mamba mindset, at least.
His leadership position within the franchise hasn't changed, but the responsibilities attached to it are dramatically different. As he told reporters after the team's first practice Tuesday, this group is nothing like the ones he has guided before:
"In the past I knew all the guys," Bryant said, per ESPN Los Angeles' Arash Markazi. "Most of the guys were veterans and had been in the league for a while and was familiar with them a little bit more. These guys, not so much."
The vets Bryant will have at his side come surrounded by question marks.
Steve Nash, who is also entering his 19th season, made just 15 appearances for the Lakers last year. The 40-year-old admitted his basketball career has now become a race with time.
"If I can manage the amount of minutes I'm on the court and keep myself going and don't overdo it to where I can't recover, maybe I got a chance to play a lot more," he told reporters.
Carlos Boozer, the 32-year-old who landed with the Lakers after being amnestied by the Chicago Bulls, is looking to recover from his worst statistical season since his rookie year. The big man tallied only 13.7 points and 8.3 rebounds in 28.2 minutes and was often lifted for defensive purposes late in games.
As far as "proven" veterans go, that's about all this roster has to offer.
The other guys with track records on this team bring resumes that are largely unfamiliar to Bryant. The five-time champion's longest tenured teammate now is Jordan Hill, who has started only 34 of his 108 games since being acquired by the Lakers in March 2012.
Then again, maybe it's a good thing there are so many new faces surrounding Bryant. After the Lakers posted their second-lowest winning percentage in franchise history last season (.329), they obviously needed some changes.
The Lakers' depth chart features six players who had no part in last season's debacle: Boozer, Jeremy Lin, Ed Davis, Wayne Ellington and rookies Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson. L.A. also has a new—but familiar—face on the sideline in head coach Byron Scott, who played 11 seasons for the Lakers between 1983 and 1997.
With all these alterations, the Lakers hope to have formed a new identity as well. The ink hadn't yet dried on Scott's new deal before he started stressing the importance of defense, an area of the game this team didn't play at even a passable level under former coach Mike D'Antoni last season (107.9 points per 100 possessions, 28th overall).
Change can be exhilarating and welcomed, but with a transformation this pronounced, rough patches could be impossible to avoid during the transition.
Considering how loudly Bryant's biological clock is ticking, he doesn't really have time to wait.
Given the current state of the franchise, though, what other option does he have?
Patience won't be a virtue for Bryant, it will be a necessity.
In the fully-loaded Western Conference, the Lakers could struggle to significantly improve on last season's performance, especially if these changes in personnel and style of play lead to a sluggish start.
This is a challenge unlike any Bryant has previously faced. Maybe that's why his mind doesn't know exactly how to process the upcoming season.
"It's a mixture of things," Bryant said of his emotional state, per Bill Oram of the Orange County Register. "It's a mixture of excitement, it's a mixture of a little nervousness, it's a mixture of rage. ... I'm trying to see if I can prove to myself that I can be myself."
Bryant is a ruthless competitor and, adding to the difficulty of this season's task, typically successful when he steps inside the lines.
Even with last season's stain on their resume, the Lakers' record since adding Bryant in 1996 is 905-523. That's a .634 winning percentage, a number only seven teams cleared in 2013-14.
With Bryant on board, the Lakers have more than twice as many championships (five) as losing seasons (two). And Kobe really only had a hand in one of those two disappointing years, L.A.'s 34-48 performance in 2004-05, when he was joined in the startling lineup by the likes of Chris Mihm and Chucky Atkins.
For anyone thinking Bryant can single-handedly salvage this season, understand that he was individually brilliant in the 2004-05 campaign: 27.6 points, 6.0 assists, 5.9 rebounds, 23.3 player efficiency rating.
The Lakers' success doesn't simply rest in Bryant's hands. It hinges on a number of players that he doesn't really know, most of whom the basketball world at large doesn't have a good feel for.
For Bryant, this season could play out in three different ways.
The first would be his body failing him again and another catastrophic injury putting him on the brink of retirement. Believe me when I tell you my fingers were crossed as I typed that, as the NBA is not—and would not be—the same without him.
The second would have Bryant chasing a savior role, soaking up every last ounce of production his aging frame has left to give.
It's the same type of torch he tried to carry late in the 2012-13 season, when he logged an unconscionable 45.5 minutes a night over his final seven games. It was during that seventh outing when his body finally gave way, and his mortality became unnervingly clear in the form of a torn Achilles tendon.
Even (especially?) with the odds stacked against the Lakers, it's impossible to rule out the possibility of him pursuing this path. It's simply a part of his competitive nature, which already made an appearance at the Lakers' first practice of the season.
"Basically, I had to ask Kobe to, you know, 'Why don't you shut it down? We've got another one tomorrow," Scott said, per Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, asking Bryant to skip the team's last part of conditioning.
Expect to hear of similar conversations throughout the campaign. Even if a plan is in place to monitor Bryant's minutes, as general manager Mitch Kupchak said there is, per Bresnahan, the execution of it could be an arduous task.
Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes explained the predicament:
"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?
"
Hughes answered the question himself: Ridiculously tough.
What, then, is Bryant's third option?
It's adopting the role of team mentor. It's helping to increase the speed of the young players' development, demanding accountability from his veteran teammates and hoping against hope that the injury imp mercifully leaves he and Nash alone.
It's a back-breaking task that can—and almost certainly will—challenge every bit of Bryant's composure.
Living with mistakes and tracking progress in anything other than wins has never been part of his approach. But with the hand he's been dealt, he may not have another choice.
With so little sand left in his NBA hourglass, his best bet is attempting to make the most out of his current situation.
"(I'm) much more patient now, because I figure I don't have many of these left," he said at media day on Monday, "so I might as well just bite the bullet and just act like I'm enjoying chewing (the bullet)."
That patience will be tested like never before with these Lakers, an unproven and potentially overmatched bunch with a narrow window to earn Bryant's trust.
Giving it to them could be the hardest fight of his basketball life. Considering his other alternatives, though, he must embrace the battle ahead.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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