Kobe Bryant's return from injury is riddled with so many questions. Will he be the same player post-injury or will fans see a shell of himself? But Houston Rockets' James Harden assures that there's no need to worry because it's going to be "20-year-old Kobe" out there on the court.
Speaking to NBC Sports regarding Kobe Bryant's return, the all-star guard said:
"We talk and he's ready. He's 20-year-old Kobe. It's going to be a crazy environment," he said.
In an interview with Chris Ballard for Sports Illustrated in preparation for Kobe Bryant's return, the Los Angeles superstar claimed that he's not going to be the same player he was once when he was 20 when he could jump over everybody.
Kobe Bryant is, in fact, changing his game to suit what his body could do. This early, he's already studying how Paul Pierce, who's 36-year-old and now with the Washington Wizards, has adjusted his game to play on the ground, rather that in the air.
"I'm going to max [my last two years] out too, to do whatever I can. Leave no stone unturned, no water left in the sponge," he said.
Most basketball pundits penciled Kobe Bryant's return to be mildly successful, where he averages 18-20 points a game. Almost nobody expected him to score in the mid-20s.
But the ever confident and optimistic Los Angeles superstar would have none of that. "It's the journey. These are the difficult times. I think it's important to show that. Because it's very easy for the public to look in October and November and say, 'Oh Kobe's back to the way he was,'" he told Chris Ballard.
"Kids look at that and say: [claps] it was just voilà! No, it wasn't just voilà. It wasn't. It was a lot of self-doubt and self-conversations and coming up with a plan, a strategy, trying to find the best people in their fields, nutrition and training and bringing them in and coming up with a plan and working at it day by day. It's the journey. The journey excites me. I like doing the work. This is my passion. Love doing it. it's not a job to me. And that's 90 percent of it," Kobe Bryant said.
