In other words, Kobe Bryant, will he also sit on the sidelines and watch the Lakers out?

Two days ago, the Los Angeles Lakers' season was over.

ESPN at the beginning of the season once began to argue, "Can the Lakers win 70 wins", that is only a few months ago, but it is like a world away.

And on the night they said goodbye, the team's top player LeBron hung up the free card due to an ankle injury, under the sunglasses, no one could see what James was thinking, and he watched the Lakers end this absurd season as a bystander.

And just after the game, a picture began to circulate widely in the social media, it was an NBA fan on the sidelines of a note held up, impressively wrote: "LeBron, if it is replaced by Kobe Bryant, he will definitely play tonight." "Truth be told, if James is seriously injured, he deserves to rest off the field, and moral kidnapping is not advisable.

But the words fans wrote word for word awakened some of the memories we buried in the pile of old papers: how Kobe Bryant did 9 years ago, at this time in 2013.

The Lakers in the 2012-13 season have a lot in common with today.

The team's top card is getting older, the Lakers were unfortunately out of the playoffs the previous year, in order to restore the competitiveness of the championship, the Purple and Gold Army has made drastic lineup adjustments and formed a star-studded lineup. In the offseason 10 years ago, the Lakers got two MVP Steve Nash and three best defensive players Howard through trades, plus the original Kobe, Gasol, ci shipping three, has been able to line up a set of all-star players composed of starting lineups, bench also have Antoine Jamison and other star scorers to shoot, for a time the limelight.

But as soon as the season began, the Lakers fell into a slump, coach Mike Brown was directly dismissed after the start of 1 win and 4 losses, D'Antoni took over halfway and failed to recover the decline, and by the middle of the season, they only had a record of 17 wins and 25 losses, watching the playoffs drift away.

Jamison said: "If we don't make the playoffs, we are likely to become the most disappointing team in history."

It is conceivable that this situation is absolutely unacceptable to Kobe Bryant, who is always full of competitive spirits.

Kobe Bryant issued a military order after the 2013 All-Star Game, assuring all Lakers fans that "we will definitely make the playoffs", but his own physical condition is not ideal. After the Lakers' defeat to the Bucks on March 28, they still fell in the top eight in the competitive West, but the left ankle injury combined with the impact of bone spurs made Kobe Bryant have to take crutches after the game to leave the stadium - the main player is in such a physical condition, the Lakers' season looks like it is in a bad state, and fans are even worried about whether Kobe Bryant can continue to play in the few games left in the season.

Two days later, the Lakers played the Kings, and Bryant decided to take the injury to the team.

The Kings had a record of only 27 wins and 46 losses, the bottom of the Western Conference, but the Lakers were 12 points behind their opponents at halftime, so when D'Antoni tried to replace Kobe, he was immediately rejected, "No coach, don't change me, let me play 48 minutes." ”

After saying that, Kobe Bryant continued to return to the court and led the Lakers to complete the reversal. Although Bryant didn't play the full 48 minutes, he played 47 minutes and 37 seconds, and told reporters after the game: "Now is not the time to sit back and rest." ”

Kobe Bryant should rest, but because he is Kobe, he will eventually refuse to rest...

In fact, even for the strong Kobe Bryant, the spring of 2013 was very difficult.

His hamstrings burned almost every day, "that can't be described as sore, it's pure pain", in order to relieve the pain, Kobe Bryant had to take an ice bath every night after coming home, "and then put on three layers of clothes and jumped on the bed, otherwise I would be frozen and shivering, but in order to get my body back, I had no choice." ”

Worse than the hamstring is the ankle, "My right ankle is going to kill me." I had a very bad sprain on my right ankle in high school, and since then it's been causing me some trouble, and lately I've been playing unconsciously to the left, but for example, when I'm going to do a dry jumper to the left, you always have to use your right ankle, so I can only play more tied feet to cope, and then grit my teeth and go to the basket. ”

Playing with an injury can affect Kobe's efficiency, such as the game against the Kings, he scored only 19 points on 5-of-18 shooting, but he had nine rebounds and 14 assists. Because Nash was also battling injuries, Bryant was doing one thing in addition to treatment: watching the video.

Bryant said, "I spend 5 hours every night studying the footage, over and over again, stopping, rewinding, stopping, rewinding, and going back until I can tell what this weak-side defender is really observing on the defensive end, and I do a block, can he see the two people involved?" Or maybe he just stared straight at it and couldn't react subsequently, and if that was the case, I would quickly hit Judy Meeks with a three-point shot. ”

For each of his next opponents, Bryant watched footage of their previous five games, and as he watched, he positioned his teammates on the screen like a chess game. "I was like a director during that time, in fact, this way can not win the championship, but we were in a special period, so I tried to micro-play everything, I called every tactic on the field, adjusted their specific positions for all the players, and even managed the whole defense according to their own wishes."

So in the next game against the Mavericks, Bryant only scored 23 points, but had 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks, and won with a triple-double - this game, Kobe Bryant rested for 56 seconds.

The Lakers held a jersey retirement ceremony at home for O'Neal that day, Kobe Bryant did not appear on the spot, and public opinion speculated whether the two had not yet reconciled, but the more real reason was that Kobe Had to stay in the locker room for physical therapy, even if it was good to press for one more second.

Many fans should remember that there is a Chinese doctor in charge of physiotherapy rehabilitation in the Lakers, her name is Situ Minyi, the lakers' chief physiotherapist, with her superb oriental skills, she has become Kobe's most trusted treatment partner. During that time, Aunt Situ sat extraordinarily forward on the bench seat, because Kobe Bryant couldn't move when he walked there, and his slow legs and feet needed Situ to help Kobe relax his muscles and relieve pain at every pause, "Situ was like a warrior during that time, carrying a hot pack, asking Kobe about every moment of physical sensation, sometimes to press, sometimes to scrape, the whole process also had to pay attention to the warmth of Kobe's body." Lakers guard Dalius Morris described the story of the time.

It sounds like Kobe Bryant is a boxer who walks to the stretch rope at the end of each round to accept relaxation.

Bryant even changed his training habits. Under normal circumstances, Bryant would shoot 4 hours before the game, and when the court was empty, he would spend twenty or thirty minutes shooting 250 goals, "but he didn't do pre-game training during that time," said Phil Handy, a veteran trainer who also works for the Lakers this season. ”

Kobe Bryant, who was the first to run out of the locker room and enter the stadium every day, was the last to come out during this time, and he would wait until the referees began to urge him before leaving Aunt Situ to run out of the locker room, and that was how he could only rest for 79 seconds in two games.

And once the game was over, Kobe leaned back in front of the locker like he collapsed, jamison said he had never seen anyone so exhausted, and he joked with Kobe, "Hey, you look like a 105-year-old woman." ”

Next against the Grizzlies, Bryant finally applied for a 3-minute break in the fourth quarter, "I'm so tired of TM," he told D'Antoni in a hoarse voice, that he played 42 minutes and 32 seconds that day, with 24 minutes and 9 assists to lead the Lakers to a third consecutive win - but in the fourth quarter Kobe Bryant only hit 1 goal in 6 shots, and everyone was worried about his condition.

"Two games ago, I was worried about this," Gasol said, "it's like a double-edged sword, because Kobe Bryant is playing his best offensive starter performance, and the Lakers need both him to rest and he needs to be on the court to win." Of course, he himself thinks winning is more important than anything else. ”

Because the Lakers' season has no room for error. After three consecutive wins, Bryant played 47 minutes and 20 seconds, they still lost to the Clippers, the season was swept by opponents, and at the same time, in the Competition for a Playoff Spot in the West, the Lakers were overtaken by the Jazz in a loss, falling out of the top eight again.

You can already imagine that this defeat drove Bryant crazy. He became more and more regressive.

Away to the underdog Hornets, Bryant scored 30 points on 9-of-18 shooting, and if it weren't for the game the next day, he would have played more than 41 minutes and 06 seconds;

Moving to Portland in the night, Kobe Played 48 minutes in back-to-back game TWO, shooting 47 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 4 blocks on 14-of-27 shooting, and he played rose garden and even sounded the "M-V-P" cry.

Even for Kobe, who has reached his 16th year of career, playing 48 minutes away from home without extra time is the first time in his career. By the time of the match, he had played 274 minutes in a total of 288 minutes in six games, so he was once again the last person on the team to come out of the physical treatment room, and even when he boarded a charter flight back to Los Angeles, he sat down with extra caution.

At 2 a.m., Bryant returned to his home in Los Angeles, soaked in the ice water bath for 30 minutes as usual, and when he wrapped his clothes tight and ran to the bed, he could feel that his left Achilles tendon had been tightening, but he seemed to have gotten used to it. Instead of focusing on this, let's go and see the Warriors' game video.

Two days later, Staples welcomed the Warriors, who were already a playoff-level rival under Mark Jackson.

The Lakers were caught in a bitter battle, and Bryant fell to the ground frequently in the game, and at the beginning of the second half, he fell heavily under the pinch of Harrison Barnes and Aizeli, covering his knees in pain on the floor, and his teammates panicked and surrounded him.

After a while, Bryant limped to his feet.

Four minutes later, Bryant hit Azery's knee again in the breakout, "Oh my God, I feel like he's going to fall apart. Dalius Morris recalled.

Faltering, Bryant stood up again.

He didn't even go off the field for any treatment, and Kobe Bryant played every second of the game again that day until 3 minutes and 8 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Bryant broke through with the ball, and somehow he fell down again, because of a pain in his left heel, he immediately turned back to Harrison Barnes next to him and asked, "Did you kick me?" Barnes shook his head, and Bryant immediately felt that his Achilles tendon was curled up into his calf like a retracted spring.

He wanted to use his hands to bring the Achilles tendon back to the heel position, as he usually did when he broke his fingers and reset them. Of course, that was impossible, so everyone on the spot heard Kobe Bryant shout on the spot: "FXXK." ”

This time, Bryant stood up, and he even walked around the field.

"I was thinking, I have a way to get around this part, is can I not use the Achilles tendon force, for example, I can not tiptoe and then continue to play," Ko said after the game, "I put so much effort into winning, if we lose this damn game it will be over, all the effort is in vain." But humans can't get rid of the movement of the Achilles tendon, and Bryant had to look at Situ Minyi on the bench, revealing a bleak expression that Situ had never seen before.

Bryant walked back to the court, scored his 33rd and 34th points on the free throw line, and he personally equalized for the team, but the next work was only left to his teammates. He turned and walked off the court, and team doctor Gary Vetti hurried to get substitute center Ackley to grab Kobe, but as everyone expected, Thackeray was pushed away by Kobe.

"No, don't help me, don't help me with anything." In this way, he walked into the dressing room by himself, leaving a sad back.

An era came to an end, and since then, Bryant has not returned to his pre-injury level of competition until the day he bid farewell to the field in 2016.

Lakers assistant coach Darwin Hamm said: "I think during that time, Kobe Bryant seemed to be transformed into two people: one was a competitor on the court, the other, maybe I shouldn't describe it that way, but he was like a dead soldier, he had given everything he had, he regarded death as a homecoming, along the way he killed 50 enemies, 20 beasts, but finally he was scaled and could not move, so the last moment came." ”

In fact, an athlete does not have to play like this. But Bryant, the reason why he will receive endless love in his long career is because as a fighter, he has the right to choose his own way of fighting. As Lakers coach D'Antoni said years later: "If you can foresee that this could lead to a rupture of Kobe's Achilles tendon, then we would never let him do it." But human beings can't foresee the future, good or bad, can only wait until the moment it happens to know, and some of Bryant's strengths will become his weaknesses at some moments. But the point is, he will never give in. And in the end, Bryant has the right to decide his life. ”

Because of Kobe's decision, the Lakers narrowly defeated the Warriors. They then beat the Spurs rockets without Kobe Bryant, and in the nine regular season games that ended the season, they won 8 of them, and finally hitched a ride on the last train of the playoffs.

In the seven games kobe played, his total playing time was 319 minutes and 33 seconds, and the total rest time was only 16 minutes and 27 seconds, averaging less than 2.4 minutes per game.

So that's why, the fan who held up the note, he believed: If it was Kobe, he wouldn't be sitting on the sidelines as a spectator.