Mike Trudell had a sitdown interview with Gary Vitti about the concerns about Kobe going into next season. They're also questions answered about Steve Nash but pretty much only hope and no expectations should be set about him being able to help the team next season. Sad but still hoping for the best for Steve
"I have 100 percent confidence that he'll be healthy because of the way he handles his body and the style of play that we'll compete at," Vitti said. "We can't play at a frenetic pace. We can push the ball when it's there, and we can certainly let Kobe create out of the post with his back to the basket at this stage of his career."
MT: You mentioned how a player can make a move 100 times, and on the 101st, bad things happen. One could think of Derrick Rose when he tore his ACL on an explosive drive to the hoop, or, more close to home, Kobe Bryant tearing his Achilles on a simple move to his left.
Vitti: In Kobe’s case, a lot of people said it was the 47 minutes per game. That’s tough to argue with. Let’s go further. Why did it have to be that game, or the game before, or the game after? Let's use the word attrition. Why was it that period of time? What about the entire season, or the season before?
MT: Or the three straight trips to the Finals plus the Olympics…
Vitti: Maybe it's the attrition of his whole life playing basketball*, and maybe on that particular day, with that particular move, the attrition of all those things came together. Or maybe it's the speed of the game? Maybe it’s the dysfunction over time that is impossible to undo.
Kobe has played 54,208 combined regular season and playoff minutes, more than all but four players in the entire history of the NBA (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Jason Kidd and Wilt Chamberlain).
MT: With that said, there is the fair counter argument centered on his age (Bryant turns 36 on August 23) and attrition on top of the recent injuries. What else does he do to make sure he can stay healthy?
Vitti: "He's gone to the next level of nutrition. In fact, he has somebody come and picks his meals up here at the practice facility. Our chef makes his meals daily. He's also done a lot of functional movement assessment over this past year that he's been out, identifying how the way he's played over all these years had created some dysfunction,"
MT: The Spurs had not a single player – even a young guy – play over 30 mintues last year.
Vitti: That's a nice number. There’s a term called the point of diminishing returns, and that’s what we have to figure out. We'll reach a point with Kobe where, if you play him any more than X minutes, is there a diminishing return on that investment. Part two is, well, there are diminishing returns but Kobe is still better than the guy off the bench. Kobe at 60 percent is better than player X on the bench at 100 percent, so you have to fight that urge to keep playing him to an extent because you're increasing his chance of injury. That has to be figured out.
