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:
After seven months rehabbing a torn Achilles, Kobe Bryant has returned to Lakers practice, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) November 16, 2013
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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Nick Young Not Thinking About Kobe Bryant Right Now