Kobe Bryant’s Minutes A Major Concern In Lakers Slow Start

“He wanted to see if he could push through it (illness) and I wanted to give him that opportunity.”

– Byron Scott on playing Kobe Bryant 35 minutes in a blowout loss to Spurs.

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Before the start of the season, head coach Byron Scott said Kobe would play “between 30-40” minutes with most assuming the lower end of the spectrum — similar to Tim Duncan’s minutes under Gregg Popovich.

Nine games into the season, Kobe is averaging 35.2 minutes which ranks 25th in the entire league with a majority of those players being under 30 years old. While Scott did a fantastic job of managing Kobe’s minutes in the final three preseason games and the first two games of the season, the minutes played when the game is clearly out of reach in the fourth quarters have visibly increased.

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To end the preseason and start the regular season, Kobe was playing in eight-to-nine minute spurts which enabled him to rest between each quarter. While this distribution of minutes was ideal for the 19-year veteran who had only played six games in nearly two seasons, Kobe has been recently playing the entire first quarters and majority of the second halves — without rest between the third and fourth quarters.

As a result of the consecutive minutes played in the second half of games without rest for the most part, Kobe is on pace for his worst shooting percentage of his career (36.7 percent) and here is a breakdown of those shooting percentages by quarter via Basketball Reference:

1st Quarter: 19-50, 38.0 percent
2nd Quarter: 21-49, 42.9 percent
3rd Quarter: 23-65, 35.4 percent
4th Quarter: 14-46, 30.4 percent

Through nine games of the season, five of those were out of reach mid-to-late fourth quarter. Unfortunately, Kobe continued playing to start the final quarters without rest and was on pace for 40-plus minutes in a number of these blowout losses:

Houston Rockets (L, 90-108): 29 minutes
Phoenix Suns (L, 99-119): 28 minutes
Golden State Warriors (L, 104-127): 36 minutes
New Orleans Pelicans (L, 102-109): 36 minutes
San Antonio Spurs (L, 80-93): 36 minutes

Unlike previous seasons, Kobe’s minutes have to be managed and most importantly, they have to be meaningful minutes at this stage of his career. Through the course of an 82-game season, there will be times where Kobe will have to play 40 minutes and I’m more than comfortable with that, but those type of minutes shouldn’t come in blowout losses.

Taking into account Kobe’s age, overall minutes played through his 19-year career (and counting) and coming off two consecutive season-ending injures, the amount and distribution of his minutes through nine games hasn’t put him or the Lakers in a better position to win games.

Whether you like it or not, the truth is Kobe’s shot attempts will either keep or take the Lakers out of games with the lack of talent and continuity on the roster this season. For Kobe and the Lakers to have a chance to stay competitive and win games moving forward, he simply can’t continue to play the second half of games without proper rest and make a high percentage of those shots as the team’s closer.

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