The Nba

The moment Mashburn went down, the whispers started: Riley, a conditioning drill sergeant, had pushed his players too hard in the abbreviated preseason. Never mind that Lenard's injury occurred before he reported or that Mashburn was in the best shape of his career when he suffered a freak injury. "To tell you the truth, I'm kicking myself in the ass for not pushing them harder," Riley says. "We backed off because we knew some of our guys weren't in great condition. We actually spent more time than we ever have walking through drills."

Riley is certain that the combination of a long layoff and a short training camp will result in more players than ever being sidelined. "You're going to see hamstrings, groin pulls, stress fractures, things like that," he says. "You've got guys who were doing next to nothing for 8½ months. Like Voshon. I think he did very little."

Shaquille O'Neal was doing plenty—he spent much of his summer strengthening the abdominal muscles that caused him to miss 22 games last season-but found himself sidelined for one game last week with a groin pull. Trainers around the league say that no conditioning regimen can prepare a body—even a 315-pound body—for the pounding O'Neal takes under the boards. Add a game or two a week to the usual workload, and injuries seem inevitable.

Ironically, one statistic that's down this year is the number of players on the injured list, but there's an easy explanation: The NBA allowed teams to expand their rosters from 12 to 14 for the first two weeks, and those extra players filled the void left by downed players. That temporary roster expansion ends on Friday, and NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik says at least one club has asked the league to extend it for the entire season. "There's virtually no chance of that happening," he says.

Riley, meanwhile, thinks the injury bug may actually help one team. He posits that the foot injury that knocked Latrell Sprewell out of the Knicks' starting lineup will make them a better team down the road. "It's a blessing in disguise," Riley says, offering what is either a perceptive insight or a deft elbow to the head of his former team. "Now they can play their normal backcourt of Ward and [Allan] Houston and move Larry Johnson from the power forward back to the three spot. They start Kurt Thomas at the four and bring Marcus Camby off the bench. I love Kurt. If he stays healthy, he's another [Charles] Oakley.

"Now they can justify bringing Sprewell off the bench when he comes back."

Kobe or Not Kobe?
That Is No Longer the Question...

When informed on opening night that starting small forward Rick Fox would not be able to play because of a problem with his orthotics, Lakers executive vice president Jerry West mused, "I hope everyone realizes that once we let Kobe [Bryant] into the starting lineup, we'll never get him out."

West, as usual, was prophetic. Bryant had 25 points and 10 rebounds against Houston that night and has added four more double doubles since, which is five more than he had coming into this season. Furthermore, at week's end Bryant—whose career high for rebounds was eight—was averaging 9.0 boards a game. The stat-sheet number that most impressed his teammates? Five assists against the Nuggets.

West and coach Del Harris took a lot of heat last season from fans—and from Lakers owner Jerry Buss—for keeping Bryant out of the starting lineup. While West and Harris both recognize Bryant's extraordinary talent, they did not want him to get too stuck on himself, as so many budding stars have done (e.g., Allen Iverson, Stephon Marbury and Jerry Stackhouse). Bryant showed troubling symptoms of self-absorption when he tried to turn last year's All-Star Game into a one-on-one duel with Michael Jordan. He got shredded by Jordan on the court and ripped by teammates afterward.