Kobe Bryant will miss six weeks with a fracture in his left knee, the Los Angeles Lakers announced on Thursday. The injury comes less than two weeks after Bryant returned from a torn Achilles’ tendon injury. Like many others, Charles Barkley thinks the two injuries are connected, and that the fracture was likely a result of Bryant putting additional stress on his knee. But Barkley is taking things a step further and argues the Lakers should shut down their star player for the season.
Barkley argues that the Lakers will still suck with or without him and that it’s not worth him pushing himself to come back from an injury quickly again when in a best-case scenario, all the Lakers might be able to do is get an 8th seed for the playoffs.
Barkley makes another point — Adrian Peterson’s superfast recovery from surgery to repair torn ligaments in his knee set unrealistic expectations for other players. Other players rushing to get back may be compromising their bodies in an effort to match what All Day did.
I actually agree with Barkley across the board on his thoughts on the matter. Even though doctors might say Bryant will only miss six weeks, maybe they’re wrong about this. It seems to me that Bryant’s body just isn’t ready for the stress of playing competitive NBA games when he’s been through so many leg injuries in the past year. Then again, we all thought Derrick Rose was playing it safely by taking an entire year off to recover from his ACL injury, and he still got hurt again.
Kobe’s philosophy is to rock it til the wheels fall off, and the wheels are starting to come off, it seems. Rest probably is the best medicine.
