I concede I thought Kobe Bryant could beat this, too.

I covered the guy for more than a decade, and I saw him come back, time and again, from injuries that would sideline the average athlete.

“Badly sprained” ankle? Kobe would be back in a week, or sooner. He would keep playing right through things like broken fingers. Knee surgery? He would wait and get it fixed at the end of the season and be ready for opening night.

A ruptured Achilles? Sure, I thought, Kobe will come back something quite close to what he was before it the tendon came apart, in April.

What we saw tonight, instead, was a guy who is miles away from being useful, let alone great. And knows it.

From what I can tell, Kobe’s return was one of the big sports stories in the U.S. … even on an NFL Sunday. Even foreign-based wire services like Agence France-Presse and Reuters had stories about the comeback.

And it was rough. Very rough.

Eight points on 2-of-9 shooting. Eight turnovers.

And I didn’t see every minute he played, but he looked heavy and, especially, slow. And you can’t survive in the NBA with no quickness and when carrying too much weight. Not on the perimeter, you can’t.

I’ve done a 180 on this. Now I am convinced an Achilles rupture is not something anyone really comes back from, not even Kobe, in a game that calls for explosive movement.

Now I am wondering why he was allowed to play most of a game on his first night back, thrown into the middle of the NBA season with nothing more competitive than some intrasquad work.

And those turnovers! Most of that was probably not knowing new teammates, but it could also have been about a guy who didn’t trust his ability to get to the rim, and looking to pass first — and opponents recognizing that.

Also, the Lakers recently giving Kobe $48.5 million for the next two years … looks really sketchy, now. If Kobe doesn’t improve dramatically, and I’m not talking to him getting back to where he was in April of this year, just back to being an above-average NBA player … that layout will be regretted.

The only positive I can come up with here is a negative … that could become a positive:

The rehabbing-while-he-plays Kobe drags down the Lakers so badly that they drop out of playoffs contention and find themselves deep into the lottery zone. (And losing at home to the awful Raptors is a good/bad start at that.)

This is supposed to be the best NBA draft in a very long time.  (The Lakers seem to have mortgaged a lot of their future, in terms of giving away draft picks, but they do have their No. 1 for the next draft.)

And  Kobe’s physical issues are just part of it. He also seems likely to confront significant issues of him joining a team that seemed to like to play at a higher tempo than is realistic for post-operative Kobe. So, the team needs to be reinvented, too.

Maybe I am overreacting. But I remember the stories about how NBA players never really regain what they had, after Achilles surgery. My faith in Kobe’s resilience and will power clouded my judgment. And I apparently am not the only one; some of the others hold executive positions in the organization.