By nearly every metric, Kobe Bryant is having his best season in
years. Not only is he leading the league in scoring, but he's also
performing above his career average in points per game and rebounds. (As
always, Kobe is shooting too much: plus ça change.) Even his minutes are up: Kobe is playing nearly five minutes more per game than last season.
This is not the usual curve of an NBA career. As the economist David
Berri has demonstrated, most NBA players exhibit an inverted U curve of
productivity, showing a steep ascent as they first learn to play in the
NBA. Their peak arrives shortly thereafter, usually around age 24 or 25,
and is followed by a steady plateau until age 27. It's at this point
that the decline begins: The grind of the season starts to dismantle the
body. Joints give out, muscles lose their fast twitch fibers, tendons
are torn. It's the usual tragedy of time, only accelerated by the
intensity of professional basketball. By the age of 30, their glory days
are probably long gone.
And yet, the aging Kobe — he will turn 34 this summer1
— seems to have resisted this dismal downward arc. In particular,
Kobe's arthritic right knee seems to have healed itself, allowing him to
return to more aggressive form. As Mike Brown, the Lakers coach, noted
in December: "He's done some things in practice that have kind of wowed
you as far as taking the ball to the basket strong and finishing with
dunks in traffic." Kobe concurs: "I feel a lot stronger and a lot
quicker."
Although Kobe has been mostly silent on the topic of his arthritic
knee — "I'm not talking about my injury" is a constant refrain — his
main treatment consisted of a new therapy called Regenokine. The therapy
itself is part of a larger category of treatments known as "biologic
medicine," in which the patient's own tissues are extracted, carefully
manipulated, and then reintroduced to the body.
In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in
biologics. (The list of people who have also experimented with
Regenokine reportedly includes Fred Couples, superagent Ari Emanuel, and
the late Pope John Paul II.) Those willing to pay out of pocket can now
treat their ailing joints with everything from platelet rich plasma
(PRP) therapy, in which blood is spun until it contains a high
concentration of healing platelets, to concentrated bone marrow
injections, dense with stem cells. What all of these biologics have in
common is the same appealing logic: Instead of cutting with a scalpel,
or administering a synthetic drug — these treatments have long recovery
times and nasty side effects — the healing mechanisms of the flesh
should be put to work. The body heals best when it heals itself.
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