Kobe Bryant Is The Exception: No News Is Bad News

Kobe Bryant may be content to obfuscate via Twitter, but Los Angeles Lakers fans have had enough of the run-around and clamor for the shooting guard’s return.

Bryant taunted fans with the enigmatic hashtags #blackout and #bearhunt last Tuesday on his Twitter account, @KobeBryant. Speculation was that #bearhunt might be a veiled reference to the Memphis Grizzlies game this week on November 15 and a possible Kobe Bryant comeback.

Nope.

The L.A. Times set the record straight, with Kobe shedding light that #blackout referred to a strenuous workout. Bryant didn’t exactly explain what #bearhunt meant, but the Times speculates that is may have been a call back to a post on Kobe Bryant’s Facebook page after he tore his Achilles tendon in April; Bryant posted the lyrics to a Jay Z song, saying “If you see me in a fight with a bear, [pray] for the bear.”

The reason that Lakers fans and Kobe Bryant fans are forced to seek out these imaginary glasses-half-full because the lack of any real updates of substance on Bryant’s condition and expected return to the court. With no date in sight, fans must get by with Kobe Bryant headlines that tell them he’s “progressing steadily” and finding out on a game-by-game basis that he won’t be playing. Bryant has explained that his ankle isn’t necessarily the problem so much as his overall conditioning as a result of the injury.

“It’s not anything to do with the tendon necessarily,” Bryant said via Yahoo Sports. “It’s going from having the ankle locked up for so long. It wouldn’t move. You have that limited range of motion, I don’t have to tell you the domino effect that has on the other parts of the body.”

As fans await Kobe Bryant’s return, his Lakers are 3-5, having lost two in a row to the New Orleans Pelicans and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Of course, the 2013-14 season is still very much in its infancy, but how long will Bryant continue to be a non-factor? The original, vague prognosis put Kobe’s return anywhere from October, 2013 to February, 2014, the latter of which puts him on the shelf for the entire first half of the 82-game season.

How long can the Lakers last without Kobe Bryant? Are Lakers fans realistic in their hopes for Bryant’s return? How hard can Kobe push himself in his quest to return?