In basketball, there aren’t many injuries worse than an Achilles tear. It can sideline a player for over a year and often diminishes their explosiveness tenfold. Veteran Wesley Matthews knows this all too well and turned to a familiar face in the league for advice during one of the most difficult periods of his career.
Advertisement
While playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, Matthews tore his Achilles tendon in a game against the Dallas Mavericks in 2015, bringing an early end to what was his sixth year in the league. He had seen Kobe Bryant suffer through the same horrific injury a few years earlier, but never imagined he would have to take the same grueling journey back to full fitness.
Fortunately, the Black Mamba was there to guide him, as Matthews shared in a recent interview with Andscape. It’s a story that shows how one phone call can make all the difference.
Matthews was heartbroken after his injury. But he perked up when he revealed that he got a strange phone call that very same night. “After the game, my phone rings and it’s Kobe. One of the best ever reached out to me in one of my darkest hours,” he said.
The strange thing was that Matthews and the Los Angeles Lakers icon were not even close. “I had no prior relationship, no bumping into, nothing other than us competing,” he confirmed. It was just Kobe being Kobe, and understanding that a fellow lover of basketball was about to be put through an emotional ringer.
Matthews was then asked by Andscape what advice Bryant had for him. “Feel the pain. He’s like, ‘Cry, yell, whatever emotion that you feel, feel that. But know that you gonna get through it.'”
“It’s gonna be tough. It’s gonna be hard, but you’re gonna get through it,” added Matthews, his voice carrying a touch of pain as he recalled that dark period in his life. He explained that in the early stages of recovery, he had to keep his leg elevated for 17 hours a day, joking that if he only slept seven hours, he needed to find something to do with the remaining time.
“The best thing to do for myself was to do nothing. That’s hard,” Matthews admitted. But he did find something to focus on. He studied tape of Kobe’s own Achilles injury and the training regimen the legend followed to return to the hardwood. “I watched everything that Kobe was doing, trying to come back.”
The studying paid off. Seven months later, Matthews, now a member of the Mavericks, made his return to the NBA. Fittingly, he faced Kobe and the Lakers that same week and recalled what Bryant told him once he saw that he was healthy.
“In my first game back against Kobe, he said, ‘I’m not surprised.’ That sh** felt good because he knows. Kobe knows what that takes, what that feels like. For him to be like, ‘I’m not surprised,’ that was everything I needed to hear.”
Few people in the NBA can give you a compliment that stays with you forever. For Matthews, hearing it from the Mamba likely meant more than any win on the court or success he had achieved up to that point. One of the game’s greatest players had acknowledged him. Respect might not be the same as a championship ring, but it can feel just as rewarding.
The way Matthews retold this life-altering experience made it clear how much Kobe’s kindness and words of wisdom meant to him. It is something he will carry with him for the rest of his life. Sometimes, that matters just as much, if not more, than the score at the final buzzer.
