With 9:11 seconds left in Wednesday night’s contest against the Pelicans, the Lakers had just watched Ronnie Price get ejected for a flagrant two. At the time, they were down 17 points and looked like a team that wasn’t going to be able to make a run akin to the previous night’s furious comeback.
However, instead of Byron Scott sending out someone like Xavier Henry, who desperately needs playing time to get a feel for the game again, he sent out Kobe Bryant, who was already on 30 minutes played in the game, one night after notching 37 minutes in a road loss.
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In just over a minute, the lead had quickly ballooned to 101-78 and it was all but officially over. Instead of waving the white flag and emptying his bench, or at the very least getting his aging star out of the game, Scott kept Bryant in for another six minutes, a time span where the lead stayed at 17 points. Finally, at the 2:54 second mark, Bryant checked out for the night.
If you look at the stats, Bryant is averaging 35.0 minutes a night, which seems somewhat reasonable. Coming into the season, Bryant and Scott agreed on a minutes restriction which Scott would only classify as somewhere between 30 and 40.
However, when you take into the account the two blowout losses early in the year in which Bryant sat out the entire fourth quarter of both, and his averaged is skewed. Over the last six games, Bryant is averaging 36.8 minutes a night, including the game against Phoenix where Bryant played just over 44 minutes.
That average would actually go hand-in-hand with his regular average across his career of 36.6 minutes a night. Does that sound like a minutes restriction?
We’ve seen many times a version of Bryant that looks tired and lacking lift on his jump shot. In the game at Golden State, Bryant started the night 2-11 from the field, nearly every shot short. If not for a white-hot performance in the second half (where he shot 10-17), we’d be talking about a tired Bryant.
On a team with a host of young players from Xavier Henry to Jordan Clarkson and Jeremy Lin, it’s Bryant who has played 24 more minutes than anyone else on the team. In his 19th season!
The problem is that this season is a marathon, not a sprint. By fighting for wins to start the season (and failing), you’re further sacrificing games at the end of the season when Bryant will be highly ineffective. We know no one can be father time, and the minutes this season are going to add up VERY fast on Bryant.
You need only look at the Spurs, who are the masters at keeping players fresh, to see how Bryant should be treated. In six games this season, Manu Ginobili is averaging 26.0(!) minutes a night. With that, he’s averaging the most points he has since the 2010-11 season.
Playing Bryant at the end of blowout games is wasting minutes. At this point in his career, the Lakers and Scott should be counting the minutes Bryant plays incredibly carefully, making sure each one is in a vital situation. Don’t wear down Bryant in a lost season.