LOS ANGELES — To a world watching Kobe Bryant make his return from a devastating injury, it was far from a storybook ending.
To Bryant, it was a beginning.
There is no storybook because this is his real world, the only world he has ever known. Even though his life has been packed with drama and hero shots along the way.
“The last time I had eight months off, I think I was still in the womb,” he said late Sunday night.
If you want to boil it down to a story, then there are two parts to his return from a torn Achilles tendon. There's one part you can read plainly in black and white in Bryant’s postgame comments:
“Rhythm’s completely out of sync.”
"A bunch of things I completely messed up on.”
“I failed miserably at that.”
“This is a complete failure to me.”
“It’s an F. For me, it’s an F.”