Anytime a star athlete injures himself, us sports talk radio guys are always forced to try to talk like doctors.
Kobe Bryant has been diagnosed with a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint of the pinky finger of his right hand. That's way above my pay grade, but Stephania Bell, ESPN's injury guru, gave an excellent explanation on Friday's Steve Mason Show.
Kobe, who will apparently play in today's NBA All-Star Game despite the injury, has elected to try to play through this injury. He was given 2 options:
1) Have surgery immediately and be 100% in 6 weeks,
or
2) "Buddy tape" his pinky finger and ring finger and continue playing. The risk is that if he jams or hyper-extends the finger again in March or April or Game 1 of the Lakers' first round playoff series, he would miss 6 weeks or longer from that point.
This is a tough call. Hopefully, he's doing the right thing for himself, his teammates and Laker fans.
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