Thursday afternoon’s tweet from the Los Angeles Lakers says it all: Kobe Bryant has suffered another injury.
Update: Kobe Bryant had an MRI exam, preliminary results show a tear of the rotator cuff. He will fly back to LA. pic.twitter.com/EOZTuuKjoL
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) January 22, 2015
The injury came in Wednesday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans, as Bryant drove baseline and dunked with both hands. After the dunk, he could be seen rubbing his right (shooting) shoulder as he ran back on defense. He received treatment on the shoulder during the game before returning to action to merely shoot left-handed.
After the game, Bryant talked about the injury, “It felt fine when I went up, didn’t feel too good when I came down.”
As alluded to in the Lakers’ tweet, Bryant is not traveling with the team to San Antonio. Instead, he is going to LA to get examined by team doctors, at which point an update to his condition will be released.
A few guys around the league chimed in about his latest injury.
Damn Kobe
— Brandon Rush (@BRush_25) January 22, 2015
Sad to see Kobe hurt again..growing up in LA, I grew up with his career..
— Spencer Dinwiddie (@SDinwiddie_25) January 22, 2015
To think bout the end kills a piece of that lil kid still left in there..
— Spencer Dinwiddie (@SDinwiddie_25) January 22, 2015
Get well @kobebryant
— Tony Allen (@aa000G9) January 22, 2015
Laker Nation: Sad day for Laker fans, as we learned Kobe Bryant has suffered a torn rotator cuff. I wish him a speedy recovery!
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) January 22, 2015
Lakers beat writer Mark Medina talked to some doctors to get a feel for recovery time from such an injury.
On Kobe’s rotator cuff In general terms, a few medical doctors I talked to said full tear requires surgery & takes 4-6 months to heal.
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 22, 2015
More on Kobe’s rotator cuff: If it’s a partial tear, most patients take a few weeks of rehab (anywhere between 2-6 weeks).
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 22, 2015
Should his rotator cuff tear require surgery, he will undoubtedly need to sit out the rest of the year.
Considering that a third-consecutive year might be over due to a season-ending injury, which all but ensures that Bryant will not get a sixth championship ring anytime soon (if at all), J.A. Adande offered up the silver lining.
You know what’s looking smart now? Kobe hoisting shots out of the gate to make sure he moved past Jordan before his body broke down
— J.A. Adande (@jadande) January 22, 2015
Bryant did pass Michael Jordan on the NBA career scoring list. That certainly counts for something.
Previous Tweet Post:
Tweet of the Night: Trevor Ariza Not Happy About $2500 Fine
Michael Brumagin writes the Tweet of the Day for SheridanHoops.com and is also a correspondent for BleacherReport.com. Follow @mbrumagin
After this, no decent free agent is going to LA if Kobe will be back next year (which is likely in order to collect his 25 million.
Mother Nature is batting 1000.