Kobe happy to have helped A-Rod
LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant is doubly happy that Alex Rodriguez decided to go to Germany for an innovative treatment on his right knee and left shoulder.
First of all, the Lakers superstar said, "I gave him the phone number." On top of that, when asked specifically if he was upbeat about Rodriguez's recent successful surgeries in Europe, Bryant said, "As a Yankee fan? Hell, yeah."
Before his team's game against the Knicks Thursday night, Bryant tentatively answered a few questions about his own injured wrist, which had threatened to keep him out of the first weeks of the delayed NBA season. But he was emphatic about the health of his knee, which was healed by a trip to Germany and the very treatment, called Orthokine, that he recommended to his friend and fellow sports icon.
"I just told him it made a huge difference for me, 95 percent better," Bryant said. "He reached out to me. We've got a relationship. We've gone out to dinner and stuff like that.''
Bryant added, "If you asked me about the first time we connected or something like that, I couldn't tell you." But yes, they are friends. They are close enough to speak frankly about professional health, which involved the procedure in which a protective protein is produced from the patient's own blood by a special technique and is injected it into the affected joint.
After he got the idea from Bryant, Rodriguez sought and received approval from the Yankees and Major League Baseball.
Bryant was asked how he knew about the rare procedure in the first place. He said, "It's my job to know these things. I have people I pay to know these things . . . You can't try something just to try it. It has to make sense."
