In 2013, when Kobe Bryant was driving to the basket late in a game against the Golden State Warriors, he felt something pop. As he limped and grimaced, he asked Harrison Barnes of the Golden State Warriors if he had kicked him in the back of the leg. Barnes hadn’t. The ensuing pain coupled with the inability to put pressure on his foot let Kobe know right away. It was his Achilles.
Nov 23, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) on the bench during a time out in the second half of the game against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center. Nuggets won 101-94. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Since that heart stopping moment a year and a half ago, no other NBA player has suffered such a devastating injury. There have been surgeries and broken wrists and broken feet and sprained ankles and torn MCL’s.
Yesterday in practice, the first Achilles injury since Kobe’s 2013 rupture brought silence to the court in El Segundo. Naturally, it affected the entire team’s mood.
Xavier Henry was performing a similar basketball move as Kobe Bryant in April 2013. “Just like mine”, Kobe said. “Same thing, just tried to take off, drive to the basket & it popped.”
Xavier’s Achilles ruptured on Monday afternoon. And just like that his 2014-15 season was over. One minute he was on the court. The next minute he was forced into thinking about surgery and rehab.
Xavier has had an injury prone career but his previous injuries were because of his right knee. Xavier never suffered anything of the magnitude of an Achilles injury and its psychopathic damage to careers. It wipes out the explosive nature of an athlete’s body and it messes with the psyche in the process.
To the naked eye, there is a level of peculiarity that two teammates would have the same injury 19 months apart. Xavier wasn’t on the Lakers when Kobe tore his Achilles but that hardly seems to matter to the conspiracy theorists (you know who you are) who draw a line in ink from Kobe to Xavier and everything in the middle.
Blame Jim Buss for his general incompetence. Blame Gary Vitti for his training methods. Blame Byron Scott for not playing Xavier enough. Blame Xavier for practicing.
When Kobe’s Achilles ruptured, the consensus was that Mike D’antoni was responsible. It was D’antoni who was playing Kobe too many minutes (Kobe played more than 3000 minutes in 2012-13). Conversely, Xavier Henry has only played 86 minutes all year. So what or who to blame now? Too few minutes? Not enough stress on his leg?
The Achilles injury is particularly brutal just because it is a tendon from which the entire leg stabilizes itself. The calf is attached to the heel by way of the Achilles so every function involved with athletic movement, even walking itself, is impaired. The Achilles is the largest tendon in the body and for good reason. The level of force it can sustain is three to four times a person’s weight.
With that level of strength, when it ruptures, there is never one specific cause but rather a host of random circumstances that convene in one perfect moment. It is lucky when an Achilles never ruptures and it is unlucky when it does. But it makes fans feel better to pinpoint a cause, a reason why, to juxtapose a victim with a bad guy. Someone has to be the accused and stand trial. We have to know why it happened in order to make our judgments seem necessary.
But the why-did-this-happen argument in the cases of Kobe Bryant and Xavier Henry and Chauncey Billups and Isaiah Thomas and Elton Brand and Dominique Wilkins is simple: they absorbed physical stress until the Achilles tore. Random things happen without logical explanation. It’s a mystery. Or, it’s science. Or, it’s the Basketball Gods working overtime.