For the third consecutive season, Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant saw his season ended early due to injury. Heading into his 20th NBA season, it only makes sense that many are questioning how much Kobe has left and if his body can hold up for an entire season.
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For his part, Kobe believes his body feels good and told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that there are no question marks about what he can do:
The body is good. I feel good. … My lower body is solid. There are no question marks on what I can do. My body and my legs feel extremely strong and healthy. That’s the big difference. My upper body, I’ve been doing the weights and stuff like that. I’ve been kind of building up the upper body strength. The biggest change is I feel very, very solid in my legs.”
If there is one positive to come from Kobe’s injury last season, it is that it was an upper body injury, which allows Kobe to work out more this off-season and get his legs together as opposed to not being able to do anything as his knee and Achilles healed.
Kobe will definitely need to have his body in order as he will be playing a lot of small forward this season, something he doesn’t see as a big deal. More importantly, he just needs to make it through the entire season, a necessity if the Lakers are going to make the playoff run that he believes is possible.