Plenty of internal and external motivation surrounds Kobe Bryant.
He enters the 2014-15 season trying to prove he can overcome two serious injuries in the past year through unmatched fundamentals and conservative playing time. With ESPN releasing today their No. 40 overall ranking for Bryant, that will likely fuel his drive even more. But when the Lakers host the Utah Jazz tonight at the Honda Center in Anaheim, will Bryant exact revenge on Jazz forward Dahntay Jones nearly 19 months after falling on his foot and spraining his left ankle?
Bryant suggested as such on March, 13, 2013 when he expressed frustration that he landed on Jones’ foot just as he landed. But in an interview with this newspaper, Jones sounded skeptical that will happen when the two face off against each other for the first time since that injury.
“Not for me. I don’t think it does for him, either,” Jones said following the Jazz’s morning shootaround at the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo. “He has bigger goals he’s dealing with throughout the course of the season. He’s trying to get back. That’s on the top of his list.”
Much has changed since that incident. Jones played for the Atlanta Hawks at the time. He did not play for any NBA team last season. Jones signed on to the Jazz’s training camp roster on a nonguaranteed contract. Bryant did not miss a game because of his left ankle sprain by receiving around-the-clock treatment. A month later, however, Bryant suffered a season-ending injury to his left Achilles tendon. After appearing in only six games in the 2013-14 season, Bryant then experienced a season-ending left knee injury.
Yet, Jones said he has continued to deal with “repercussions outside of basketball” after Bryant lamented about the play that led to his ankle injury. Though Bryant never explicitly said Jones intentionally positioned his foot so he would land on it following a game-tying shot that rimmed out, the Lakers’ star griped that officials need to improve protecting shooters. Bryant also said Jones “Jalen Rose’d me,” referring to a play in the 2000 NBA Finals that entailed Jones performing the same play. Since then, Rose has admitted he did that with the intent that Bryant would get hurt.
“Fans on social media have been on me. I’ve had death threats to my children,” Jones said. “When you do things like that, you put other things on people. It wasn’t that type of situation.”
Instead, Jones maintained he did not intentionally plant his foot so Bryant would land on it.
“I was guarding him the same way I did all game,” Jones said. “It just ended up with him twisting his ankle. I was guarding him the same way 30 plus minutes before that. That just happened at the end of the game.”
Jones immediately took to his Twitter account and provided various interviews to media outlets to defend his case. But Jones said he and Bryant have never discussed the incident, saying, “it wasn’t that serious of a play.”
So when the two take the court in Anaheim tonight, Jones vowed he won’t make that past incident an issue. Instead, he’s anticipating Bryant trying to lay the foundation for what he believes will mark Bryant’s return to the NBA elite.
“He’s one of the best parts of our game,” Jones said of Bryant. “He has been pivotal for the past decade, almost two for the game of basketball. For him to get past the injuries that he’s had, it’s going to be amazing. I know he’ll take it to another level and dominate. He’s just do so in another way.”
How so?
“He plays the game with his mind,” Jones said of Bryant. “Most people play with their body and athleticism, but he has figured this thing out to where he’s like a scientist on the court instead of an athlete.”
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