As I write this, Kobe Bryant has 34 points in the half, leading to me to ask the question, "Andrew Who?" but after the day Lakers fans have had, they've earned as much good news as we can give them.
Andrew Bynum as you should know, unless you spent the day spelunking, engaged in total emersion, or recovering from a horrific ice storm (hang in there, Boone County!), tore his MCL on Sunday and will miss eight to twelve weeks. But according to Rob Peterson of NBA.com, Bynum has elected to not have surgery on the tear, and will enter rehab in two weeks.
This is a pretty mature move by Bynum, recognizing the urgency of this season for the Lakers and not making his decision solely for his own career. It'll be interesting to track if Bynum is able to maintain his timeline. Last year, that didn't work out the way the Lakers wanted it to.
Last year, just like this year, Bynum turned to his own personal doctor over the notoriously questionable Lakers medical staff. He ended up missing every significant recovery deadline set before scrapping the season. The current estimate puts his return sometime between two weeks prior to the playoffs and two weeks into them. But unless Bynum improves his work ethic in regards to rehab, he's likely to miss them this year as well.
Our own Nate Jones remarked the same thing I thought after really looking at this injury though. How much does this change things? Is this not the same team that made the Finals last year before being largely embarrassed by a Celtics team that looks tremendously more vulnerable this season? And that team was without Trevor Ariza, who's a serious contributor for this squad. Even without Bynum, the Lakers are just fine.
Andrew Bynum Will Not Have Surgery originally appeared on NBA FanHouse on Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:39:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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