YAYsports! NBA

The see-saw drops the other way for now, as none other than Laker coach Phil Jackson (or JACKson, as our round friend might say) has stated for the record that Kobe is going to play in Tuesday’s home opener against the Suns.

Let’s not forget, Phil himself is dealing with a recent hip replacement, and might not make the trip to Golden State the following day.

So for Laker fans there’s that to worry about, plus the words that actually came out of Phil’s mouth regarding his prized #24.

“He says he’s going to play on Tuesday,” Jackson said. “I’m sure he’ll make the correct decision. He came off the floor [Saturday] and he was sore, but he was on the court for a good hour and a half before he came off.”

“He said he felt like he could get it done,” Jackson said. “I just feel like I have to let him have his head on this. We know that there’s going to be some limitations to what he can do. That’s a choice he has to make. He’s been training, he’s been working hard on it.

“It’s almost four months. This is a normal injury where guys would say this is a month-out injury. It’s been twice that, three times that long for him to recover from this. We really have to let him have his head on this.”

There’s pretty much nothing in there that’s smile-inducing:

* Limited in what he can do? Check.
* Taken three times the norm to recover? Check.
* Gonna play on it when not fully recovered? Check.
* Still sore? Check.

Basically, it sounds to us like Kobe’s gonna be limited all year, which is something no NBA fan can really be happy about.

Between this and USC losing to one of those Oregon teams, Los Angeles isn’t a happy-time place right now.

We’re not so much worried about that, but more that the world is one step closer to Ohio State and Michigan going into their game ranked 1-2, which we’ve already said would cause our death on roughly Wednesday of the week leading up to the game.

So, uh, so long and such. It’s all happening, just as the elders said it would.

(Sorry to break out the Ranger Corps stuff - we know that’s so “last season”, but this pic was just begging for it.)