PLAYING HURT

We all do it sometimes. Kobe Bryant sprained his ankle on Saturday, March 12, 2011 against the Dallas Mavericks in a game that mattered. Lakers needed the win against a team they just happen to be chasing in the Western Conference standings. And you knew the injury was significant because Bryant left the bench and went to the locker room. He never does that. He then returned like Paul Pierce (Boston Celtics) does all the time and was a key contributor in the win. Fast forward to Monday and the Orlando Magic featuring Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Jameer Nelson. It’s another one of those types of games that dares you to sit it out and since #24 wasn’t interested in the dare, he chose the truth and laced ’em up.

Truth is, he was still hurt. The softball sized swelling had been reduced but a sprain is a sprain and playoffs are not far off. Why risk it? Let’s get into that in a moment. What we need to recount is that he ended the game with only 16 points on 7-19 shooting. He scored 12 of his 16 all in the 3rd quarter on mostly contested shots. The counterargument would elementarily challenge the necessity of Bryant’s involvement on Monday night. After all, 16 points from the guy who scored 81 is pittance. Couldn’t Shannon Brown and other reserves have  joined forces to muster 16 points? Possibly, but what does it mean to you when your leader plays hurt and doesn’t make excuses? What does it mean when your franchise player takes a charge while gimpin’? It would mean a lot to me.

I always figure that a guy like Kobe Bryant has upwards of $50 million in reasons to treat himself like fine China. But he operates more like Dixie Disposal ware. He’s like the treasure ship captain in the joke ‘Bring me my brown pants’. At the start of that joke, the captain asked for his red shirt when combat was unavoidable  because he didn’t want his subordinates to see him bleeding. “If I am wounded, the blood does not show, and the crew continues to fight without fear,” the ship’s captain said. Later on, that same captain asked for his brown pants for a similar reason. Playing on a bum ankle pales in comparison to war but the logic seems solid. The more prominent the leader, the greater the sacrifices which must be made to remain engaged in the battle for the sake of morale among the troops. And this is why Mark Jackson and Chris Mullin kept saying last night that the Lakers are still the team to beat.