Kobe Bryant’s Trainer Says Injury Had ‘Nothing’ to do With Heavy Minutes

Everyone seems to be looking for a specific cause of Kobe’s Achilles injury—playing too many minutes, an injury elsewhere that forced him to overcompensate, or just his old body breaking down—but his trainer believes it was a simple freak injury. Per the LA Daily News: “Bryant limped off to the court with 3:06 remaining, headed to the locker room and learned he probably has a torn Achilles tendon in his left foot that will keep him out for the rest of the season and possibly beyond. But as Bryant’s MRI results taken this morning, his personal trainer, Tim Grover, spoke with absolute certainty on one thing regarding his client’s injury. ‘It had nothing to do with the minutes he had been playing or anything of that sort,’ Grover said in a phone interview with this newspaper. ‘A torn Achilles tendon is a very freaky injury. It’s just one of those things that just happened.’ Grover conceded the possibility that Bryant’s torn Achilles tendon could stem from the bone spurs in his left foot that he has had ‘for a while.’ But Grover said it’s common for anyone to suffer the injury through every-day movements, such as climbing out of bed or stepping off a sidewalk. ‘Everybody is trying to look at somebody to blame for it whether it be the coaching staff, Kobe, me or whatever it is. But everyone who is involved with him has to take responsibility in this. But it’s more of a freakish injury than anything else.'”