Lakers News: Kobe Bryant Returns To Lakers Practice

Dan Duangdao
2 Min Read

Kobe Bryant Smiling

Before Friday night’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, head coach Mike D’Antoni revealed that he personally doesn’t think Kobe Bryant will return by Thanksgiving day. While D’Antoni says Bryant has been making progress, he has only been doing some light shooting.

Less than 24 hours later after D’Antoni’s statement, Bryant will make his first return to the Lakers’ practice since rupturing his Achilles seven months ago via Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski:

While there are no updates on when Bryant will make his highly-anticipated regular season return, this is great news for basketball fans around the world. Since rupturing his Achilles, there have been many questions regarding if Bryant would even be able to return this year and if he will still be able to play at a high level. However, Kobe has worked extremely hard and is now clearly ahead of schedule in terms of his recovery.

Earlier this month, Bryant blacked out his Twitter avatar and informed the media that he would need three weeks of vigorous training before returning to practice. With the recent update from D’Antoni last night, many feared that Bryant may have suffered a setback and would require more time.

With the good news of Bryant’s return to the practice court, all eyes and ears will be ready when he announces when he’ll be back at Staples Center to help the struggling Lakers, who are 4-7 to start the season.

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Dan Duangdao was the managing editor at Lakers Nation (2013-16, 2018-20). He is currently the founder at LA Sports Media, Lake Show, Raiders Nation, Rams Nation, Kings Nation, Galaxy Nation, and MMA Rumors. Born and raised in Southern California and a lifelong Los Angeles sports and mixed martial arts fan, his first NBA game was Kobe Bryant and the Lakers against the Golden State Warriors with Michael Jordan in attendance during the 1998-99 NBA season. He was previously a contributor at HOOPSWORLD (now Basketball Insiders) and an NBA editor at ClutchPoints. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @DanDuangdao.