Kobe: The immortal wrestles with mortality

It's been over a year since the Achilles and the broken left knee. He's rehabbed, conditioned and strengthened all the necessary joints and muscles. His confidence is back, stronger than ever: looking to prove all the doubters wrong. He is still motivated to win and has put his team mates through hell when he feels they are not pushing themselves as he is. We all felt as if Kobe was going to do what he has always done. Dominate.

This season started with Kobe going full throttle from day one of the regular season. He played more minutes than expected and took more shots than expected. He was shouldering the scoring load as well as becoming the point guard in the 4th quarter of games. It was a miracle that he was able to handle all this after battling back from two major injuries and playing 19 seasons. If you are a concerned fan like me, you were hoping for his minutes per game to drop significantly before injuries or too much fatigue set in. Too late!

Head Coach Byron Scott had a responsibility to preserve Kobe by keeping his minutes down. Obviously that was not the case, because through the first 2 months of the season, Kobe was second in the league with the most minutes played.  He started breaking down, missing games, missing shots, missing defensive assignments. Moreover, not being able to do what he wants to do on the court. You can see the frustration mounting as the reality of him losing his ability to dominate the game was fading.  His roster is sub-par and the help he once leaned on during all those title runs are is no longer there.

He has succumbed to his body and is starting to understand what he is capable of doing at a high level. The killer assassin we were used to seeing for 48 minutes per night is gone.  He still plays with that killer mentality but is only able to takeover in certain spots. He is now playing the facilitator role, setting up his team mates with easy shots, racking up assists and choosing to takeover games when its needed. We all hoped for a more dominant Kobe in his last two seasons, but a highly efficient Kobe that can dominate in different ways works too. It shows you his basketball IQ, it shows that he understands how to adapt and be effective at this stage in his career. He now acknowledges his basketball mortality.