Kobe's injury compounds Lakers' woes

Maybe a lockout wouldn't be so bad, after all.

If you're the Los Angeles Lakers, or among their legion of fans, taking this season off is looking more appealing each day.

The latest bit of disconcerting news arrived Wednesday, when the discomfort in Kobe Bryant's right wrist, the one he shoots with, was diagnosed as torn ligaments that kept him out of that night's final exhibition game against the Clippers.

Whether it sidelines Bryant, who is listed as day to day, for the Christmas Day opener against Chicago or beyond that is unclear, though he did practice Tuesday after injuring the wrist when he fell after his shot was blocked by the Clippers' DeAndre Jordan.

Dr. Michael Hausman, the Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said much will depend on the severity of the tear in the lunotriquetral ligament, which binds together bones between the forearm and hand.

"If Kobe Bryant's career was knitting sweaters for grandkids, he'd be fine," Hausman said. "If the ligament is just partially torn and there's still enough strength to hold the bones in correct alignment, in many cases, the wrist requires nothing more than a few days of rest and icing. Because he's in such a high-demand environment, if there is significant instability between the bones, he would probably require more than a few days rest. If it's a complete tear that causes the bones to move out of the correct alignment, then that would require surgical treatment."

The way things have been going for the Lakers, a few days of rest, ice and anti-inflammatories is as good as a prognosis can get.

Consider all that has befallen the Lakers since the lockout ended 13 days ago:


• The proposed trade that would have landed Chris Paul in exchange for Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol is voided by commissioner David Stern, who then approves a trade that sends Paul down the hall to the Clippers.

• Odom, miffed that the Lakers were going to trade him, tells general manager Mitch Kupchak he wants out. So Kupchak sends Odom to Dallas in exchange for an $8.9 million trade exception and a draft pick.

• Derrick Caracter, who was expected to pick up some of Odom's minutes at power forward, tears cartilage in his knee and will be out at least a month.

• Bryant's wife, Vanessa, files for divorce after which TMZ.com reports that she has grown tired of his philandering.

• The Lakers are run off the court by the new-look Clippers in their first exhibition game, prompting new coach Mike Brown to call out Bryant for occasionally being a spectator on defense.


Any day now, there should be locusts.

Lying beneath the surface in all this is a rather uncomfortable prospect for the Lakers: The end of the line for Bryant is much closer than people think.

This injury may have been a fluke, the result of an awkward fall to the court. But at age 33, with 16 years of NBA mileage, Bryant is having increasing difficulty remaining healthy.

Two years ago, he limped through the early stages of the playoffs – needing his knee drained and his fingers taped together to compensate for torn ligaments in his finger.

He underwent knee surgery after that championship season, and to protect his knees – which at one point he described as bone on bone – Bryant rarely practiced last season. This led to a few grumbles from his teammates, but more significantly it led to a drop-off in his play late in games, when fatigue seemed to settle in.

No longer was Bryant the best closer in the game, the Mariano Rivera of basketball.

Now, after having another procedure done on his knee, Bryant was supposed to be different this season: lighter, more bounce, well rested after the long lockout and healthy. This would enable him to attack the basket more, something he rarely did at the end of last season, subsisting almost entirely on mid-range jumpers.

Well, so much for that.

And what is troublesome about Bryant's injury, and the trade of Odom for nothing tangible – yet – is that the Lakers, despite a ridiculously wealthy TV deal ($200 million per year) that kicks in next season with Time-Warner, have been busy scrimping at the margins of their roster, neglecting to invest in youth or depth.

Not that there's any real replacement for Bryant, but the Lakers don't even have a fill-in who plays the off-guard position. Last year's backup, Shannon Brown, opted out of the final year of his contract and signed a one-year, $3.1 million deal with Phoenix. A year ago, they dealt Sasha Vujacic to New Jersey in a salary dump, for Joe Smith and a trade exception, which expired earlier this month without being used.

So, on Christmas Day, when they play host to the Bulls, the Lakers – who will already be without center Andrew Bynum while he serves a five-game suspension – may also be without Bryant.

Instead, they may field a lineup that looks something like Pau Gasol, Josh McRoberts, Matt Barnes, Devin Ebanks and Derek Fisher. That is enough for Lakers fans to cover their eyes and look toward the sky – or perhaps the commissioner's office – for deliverance.

Lockout, anyone?