Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has fought through so many injuries throughout his career, there is a temptation to ascribe heroic qualities to him. Through April 12, 2013, the end of his age-34 season, Bryant had played in 1,161 out of a possible 1,264 regular season games while also racking up 220 playoff appearances.
Even after that 2013 season, which famously ended with Bryant suffering a ruptured Achilles, there were plenty of people willing to give Bryant the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he was recovering from one of the worst injuries an older player could suffer, but this was Kobe Bryant we were talking about! He has an indomitable will. If anyone could come back from that injury, he could.
And come back he did. At least for six games, before his body let him down again. Bryant suffered a tibial plateau fracture that ended his season yet again. No worries -- another year removed from the Achilles injury would only put Bryant in a better chance to get back to full strength.
And he was able to return in 2014-15, playing 34.5 minutes per game and posting a 34.9 percent usage rate; regardless of anything else, those are staggeringly impressive numbers for a 36-year-old coming back from a pair of consecutive season-ending injuries. However, Bryant predictably struggled through the worst season of his career, posting a career-low 47.7 true shooting percentage.
And, of course, that was all before Bryant's latest injury took him down. This time it was a shoulder injury that required surgery and an expected nine-month recovery time. Though he should be able to play by the start of the 2015-16 season -- he began lifting weights in April as part of his rehabilitation process -- it is fair to wonder at this point how much anyone can expect from the veteran.
For his part, Lakers radio color commentator Mychal Thompson recently told the Los Angeles Daily News that he expects the following from Bryant next season:
"Twenty eight minutes a game. Play 75 games. Average 21 points. He'll be the Tim Duncan of the team where he doesn't have to carry the team because he'll have a bunch of good guys around him with the new lottery pick coming in, Julius Randle coming back, the development of Jordan Clarkson and signing some players. He'll carry the team on some nights, but not every night. He'll stay healthy and just miss back-to-back games. They'll have him on the Tim Duncan plan and he'll survive just fine."
The math doesn't quite match up here -- the Lakers played 16 games with no days of rest last season -- and this is obviously an optimistic take. It is entirely possible he stays healthy enough to play 75 games, but Fantasy owners will have to set their expectations significantly lower. How low?
To start with, let's assume Bryant doesn't play any back-to-backs. He'll undoubtedly fight to avoid that kind of plan, but he also missed eight of the final 16 games he was available for before suffering the injury a year ago, as the team tried to keep him fresher.
Regardless, I think it gives us a reasonable baseline for his best-case scenario; Bryant could play in some back-to-backs, but you also have to assume he'll miss some time otherwise. The Pistons played the highest number of back-to-back sets last season at 22, while the Lakers and Heat had the lowest number at 16. So that gives us a 60-66 game window to build off.
Let's also assume that Thompson's prediction that Bryant will play a minute total in the high-20s is a reasonable assumption. Lakers coach Byron Scott admitted he was "almost sick" at the idea that his willingness to play Bryant as many minutes as he did last season contributed to his injury. And, for his part, Scott dialed back Bryant's minutes significantly before the injury, as the veteran averaged 31.2 per game in his last eight.
So, let's put Bryant down for 65 games at 28 minutes per game. What kind of per-game production should Fantasy players expect at that level of play?
Astoundingly, Bryant's shooting rate has held pretty constant throughout his career. He took a shot every 1.7 minutes a year ago, the ninth time in 10 years he has attempted one at least every two minutes. The lone exception was 2013-14, when he played just six games and seemed to be focusing much more on distributing than anything else.
Chances are, we aren't going to see him fire up at near the rate he did a year ago -- that was the third-highest of his career. (This analysis obviously doesn't take into account fouls, and his free-throw rate was down a bit from career rates.) However, this is still Kobe Bryant, so you have to expect him to fire away quite a bit. Even if he dials it back just to the level of the five seasons he shot least often, we would still expect him to shoot once every 2.4 minutes.
Let's settle a little higher than that, and put Bryant at 13 field-goal attempts per-game, in 28 minutes. And this is where it gets really tough to predict much Fantasy value from him. With more offensive help around him, including dynamic young combo guard Jordan Clarkson, it seems fair to assume a bounceback in Bryant's efficiency, at last as far as his shooting percentages are concerned.
However, he has shot just 41.0 percent on 2-pointers and 28.5 percent on 3-pointers since his Achilles injury, so Bryant has a long way to go before he is efficient enough to do much with such a low volume. He was still Fantasy relevant last season due to his huge shooting volume and usage rate, but the Lakers aren't likely to rely on him as much moving forward.
Given his struggles over the last two injury-riddled seasons, even 15 points on 13 field goal attempts would be an improvement for Bryant. With more spot-up attempts, that improvement seems within his grasp, but it's hard to predict a huge jump. And Thompson's "21 points in 28 minutes" prediction seems impossible, unless Bryant really loses his conscience; he averaged just 22.3 in 34.5 a year ago.
Admittedly, this isn't the most scientific analysis ever, but I think it gets this point across reasonable well; you can't expect much from Bryant at this point. Even in the best-case scenario, you have to assume he misses a handful of games, ala Dwyane Wade, and he isn't nearly the player Wade is at this point in his career. Despite his injuries, Wade has remained a tremendously efficient offensive player in recent years, while Bryant has predictably and precipitously declined.
And yet, there's still that voice in the back of your head that says, "Yeah, but its Kobe." Who is going to tell him to only shoot 13 or 14 times per game? Is Byron Scott really going to run the offense through Jordan Clarkson-Julius Randle pick and rolls while Bryant spots up on the weak side? That is highly, highly doubtful.
Still, Bryant isn't a superhero, and this isn't a fairy tale. Maybe he beats the odds and thrives next season, but Fantasy owners can't count on that. This isn't a Tim Duncan situation, where we keep expecting him to fall off but he keeps putting up the same numbers, because Bryant has already fallen off. Not only are age and health working against him, but his own track record is.
Come October, there is going to be a point in the 8th or 9th round of your draft where you see Bryant's name and are tempted to take him. After all, somebody has to.
However, given how much risk surrounds him, and how much value his name and our collective expectations likely still put on him, I'm going to pass. Let him be someone else's headache.
