… out of mind?

Presumably scores, even hundreds of print and electronic journalists turned up for the Lakers’ media day, today, many of them interested in Kobe Bryant, above all else. But it would appear as if no one asked him about his long trip to the UAE and back.

I would just like to know what he thought about it all.

And this, too:

What power, what motive force, got him to cross 11 time zones twice, in about three days, to make a few public appearances in Dubai and Abu Dhabi?

He was at the media day event only because he flew all night from the UAE, a trip that had to have been 16 hours, minimum.

I like to think that if I were in Los Angeles I would want to know about that. It’s odd, don’t you think, that sort of rigorous trip just as training camp is opening?

It was noted, here and there, that Kobe was just back from Dubai … but that seems to be as far as it went.

Kobe apparently also visited China and the Philippines during the offseason, but I can excuse reporters in L.A. for not asking about that because it wasn’t like he got off the plane from Manila and went straight to a media day.

After the UAE, he did.

Perhaps his availability was limited, and everyone went for the obvious Achilles-oriented questions.

How does it feel? How is the rehab going?

When you will you be able to play?

He apparently suggested that he has been inspired, or perhaps reassured, by other veteran athletes who returned from serious injuries. Including Peyton Manning, Mariano Rivera and David Beckham, the latter of whom snapped an Achilles, as did Kobe.

Or are people — journalists — so disinterested in anything away from the court, or out of the U.S., that the somewhat bizarre journey he had just made to the UAE was of no interest at all?

I would like to think I would have asked him about it, and as a followup asked about China and the Philippines as well.

Does it help in your recovery to take long plane rides across oceans?

I was curious.

Still am.