Lakers' Scott on minding Kobe's minutes: 'I don't want him to go out hurt'

Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott learned his lesson from managing Kobe Bryant last season.

That lesson: don't overload the 37-year-old with too many minutes, especially since 2015-16 might be the last season of Bryant's illustrious career.

Injuries brought an early end to each of Bryant's last two seasons. A torn rotator cuff limited Bryant to 35 appearances in the last campaign. The year before, Bryant played six games between battles with Achilles and knee ailments.

Scott spoke to Bill Oram of the Orange County Register on Wednesday about his management of Bryant's workload:

The one thing I want, if this is his last year, I want him to go out standing. I don't want him to go out hurt. I want to make sure I do everything in my power to make sure we stick to the game plan, as far as his minutes and as far as back-to-back games.

...

Obviously we want to keep him as efficient as possible, but I know he knows his body better than anybody. When we start talking about those minutes, I want to listen to him more than anything. I'm not going to go by what I think he can play like I did last year, I want to really go by what he thinks he can play. Then I want to make sure we stick to that.

It's impossible to draw direct parallels between workload and injuries, but playing 34.5 minutes per game couldn't have helped Bryant's cause last season. Couple the minutes with an astronomical 34.9 usage rate, and it becomes clear Bryant was overloaded.

Scott's decision to follow his own intuition, while ignoring warning signs and Bryant's cautions, was unwise.

Fortunately for the Lakers, Bryant was reportedly cleared for all basketball activities and figures to be a full participant for training camp. And with any more luck - and some mindfulness from Scott - Bryant could stay injury-free for the first time since 2012.

- With h/t to Pro Basketball Talk