Kobe Bryant's return is near its completion, according to the "Black Mamba" himself. At a launching event for his new "Kobe 9" sneakers, Bryant ruled himself out of tomorrow night's meeting with the Sacramento Kings, but said he could potentially suit up Sunday.
Kobe tore his Achilles tendon late last season, missing the Lakers' first-round humiliation at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs, the entire preseason, and every game so far this year.
It feels pretty good. This is the second day now that I've been able to get out there and move around and play and play pretty well, and it felt like I could do anything that I wanted to do out there on the floor, so we progress to [Thursday]," Bryant said. "On to tomorrow. Let's see if I can go three days straight and then have another hard workout on Friday and kind of measure it accordingly."
It seems like much of his strength has returned, as well as his quickness. The remaining roadblock is conditioning, and ability to build back to "game shape."
"Just running into the shooting," Bryant said. "Because, it's one thing to be out on the track all day and run. It's another thing to run, jump, change directions, now gather your legs for a shot. You still kind of feel like you get those 'Bambi' legs and that sort of thing. But, the Achilles feels pretty good. Other than that, you're just dealing with the typical things that a player playing 18 years is going to deal with -- just it's sore here, sore there."
The Lakers are currently 9-9 and in fourth place in the Western Conference's Pacific division without their star player. Role players like Nick Young (14.2 PPG) and Xavier Henry (9.2 PPG) have filled in nicely, while Jordan Hill has anchored the frontcourt along with Pau Gasol.
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