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Kobe Bryant sitting out some practices so he doesn't have to lower minutes

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Before the season, Kobe Bryant and head coach Byron Scott had come to an agreement on a minutes limit for the 36-year-old superstar.

While it wasn't clear what that number was - Scott was intentionally vague, saying only that Bryant's number was lower than his own - few expected Bryant to be playing 35.7 minutes a night, as he is now. Bryant has averaged 36.6 minutes for his career and 38.7 since 1998-99, but players aged 36 and older have rarely assumed this kind of minutes load.

The Los Angeles Lakers aren't measuring Bryant's workload just in terms of minutes, though. According to Scott, Bryant has been and will continue resting during practices, as a way of allowing him to keep his in-game minutes high.

It's not a bad way to look at things, considering so much more goes into a basketball player's health than just playing time. It may raise some eyebrows on nights like Sunday, when Bryant played 44 minutes, but the Lakers have a paucity of other options late in close games, as Bryant would surely point out.

So far, the extra minutes are...well, they're allowing Bryant to shoot more. Through 14 games, he's averaging a league-best 26.7 points but taking 24 shots to get there and using 37.4 of the team's offensive possessions when he's on the floor. Hopefully the team is taking that heavy shooting load into account, too, because it has to be exhausting.

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