Kobe Bryant On Whether This Will Be His Final Season: ‘You Never Know’

Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant has hobbled into his astonishing 20th season with the Los Angeles Lakers, and while it is the final year on his current contract and Bryant has indicated previously that this will indeed be his final year, Kobe continues to leave the door open just wide enough to continue playing, should he ultimately decide to do so.

As Baxter Holmes of ESPN reports, after Saturday’s practice, Bryant spoke to the media about the team’s current two game stint in New York, but refused to commit 100 percent to the idea that this would definitively be his last trip to Madison Square Garden, where the Lakers will take on the Knicks Sunday.

“If you asked me today, this would be my last year. But you never know. We’ll keep it open. Whatever happens, happens.”

Bryant entered the league straight out of high school as a 17-year-old in 1996 as a first round draft pick of the Charlotte Hornets, who promptly traded Bryant to the only NBA team he’s ever known, the Lakers, for aged center Vlade Divac. The move would pair Kobe with enigmatic power center Shaquille O’Neal, with whom Bryant would dominate the early 2000s. Basketball, at a very successful and highly competitive level, is the only life Bryant has known from the time he was literally a child. Not yet even 40, it is easy to understand why it might be difficult for Bryant, one of the NBA’s all time most effective players in history, to accept that his now fragile body and high impact from 20 years in the league may have finally taken their toll and arrived at the inevitable. Why arguable the greatest player ever to step onto the court would take the emulation of his idol, Michael Jordan, even to the extent of his drive and passion to continue playing the game passed the point of age and time.

And yet, as Mike Bresnahan of the L.A. Times reports, Bryant’s body is beginning to serve as a constant and painful reminder of age and miles traveled. Bryant had what has now become a pre-game ritual: an ice bag wrapped around each knee, one of which Kobe cracked two years ago, ending his first of several recent comeback bids, and an ice bag around Bryant’s surgically repaired right shoulder, having just come off of rotator cuff surgery. It has become something of a meme amongst basketball fans as to what and how soon Kobe will suffer injury next, and yet, expectations for a 100 percent healthy Kobe Bryant, which, in fairness, we may never see in active competition again and haven’t for several seasons now, remain optimistic. That’s not because we, like Kobe, are having trouble letting go — that’s because Bryant, at an age and with enough miles to surely be showing a significant decline, has not. When relatively healthy, Bryant has proved that a Kobe Bryant at 75-80 percent is still better than 90 percent of the rest of the NBA.

But Kobe hasn’t even been relatively healthy these past three seasons, which have seen Bryant play only a handful of games in between significant injuries, the most severe of which sees Bryant attempting the inevitable: returning to the court and playing at a significantly high level after rupturing his achilles tendon. Such an injury has ended many athletic careers, and even those who were able to return were never close to being as effective. Kobe continues to show just enough flashes of his trademark brilliance to keep believers anticipating one final spectacular year, and even skeptics hoping for the same.

That brilliance has not shown thus far in five games this season. As James Herbert for CBS Sports reports, Bryant is off to one of the worst statistical starts of his career, averaging “only” 16.2 points per game and only 32.1 percent shooting. While that average points per game would be respectable for the majority of the league, it falls far short of the ideal many hold Bryant to who still expect that Kobe, on the right night, can put up 30 points per game. The thing is, while that may no longer be the norm for Kobe, on the right night, he still can.

While Bryant talked about wanting to spend more time with his wife and kids, he also spoke confidently about his ability to adjust to a new, more challenging preparation regimen should he decide, once the season is over, that he wants to play another year.

“Yeah I could. If I wanted to keep playing, I could figure it out. Absolutely.”