Kobe Bryant is hurt, and so many questions remain unanswered.
How is Blake Griffin? Did he get a good night’s sleep?
How’s Chris Paul feeling?
Did Chauncey Billups have anything to say about Bryant’s injury and what impact it might have on Chauncey’s game?
Sorry to hear about Bryant, but by now doesn’t everyone have the Lakers pegged as goners, whether Kobe is playing or not?
Aren’t they too old; too slow; and too brittle to be any good? Derek Fisher hasn’t grown any taller, Kobe is hurting, Lamar Odom is no longer here and the sooner Ron Artest leaves maybe the better for the Lakers.
As insults go, when’s the last time a Clippers coach walked off the court thinking his team might win more games in a season than the Lakers?
Monday night.
“I felt that way before the game,” says Vinny Del Negro. The Clippers went on to win by 19 that night, and here we are Wednesday night for Preseason Mismatch No. 2.
It’s a home game, but Clippers Nation doesn’t seem to know how to behave now that it has a team worthy of their support. The place is lifeless except when the Lakers score.
Staples Center is loaded with Lakers fans, and they are louder than the red, white and blue. What’s up with that? They must think there’s some kick left in their old heroes.
But there will be no Kobe for the Lakers, and no solid answers on when he might play.
“OK, so you’re the Lakers coach, you’re making your debut on Christmas Day and you haven’t grilled [Bryant], haven’t grilled the doctors to see if when he might play, or tried to get a definitive answer?” I ask Coach Mike Brown.
“Correct,” Brown said.
“Why not?” I wonder. “There’s only one [player] that matters.”
“To you guys, or to me?” Brown asks.
It’s going to be a long season. For all we know Jason Kapono is the player who matters most to Brown.
“The doctors say Kobe is day to day,” says Brown, and aren’t we all? “You tell me, what else to ask [the doctors]?”