Kobe Bryant, daredevil (Getty Images)

Kobe Bryant has played through broken fingers, and a severe and painful knee condition that resulted in him having to undergo fluid draining procedures in-between playoff games. His final two points of the 2012-13 season, following a seven-game run that saw him average 45 minutes per game, came at the free throw line, directly after he badly tore his Achilles tendon. He’s a tough dude.

Possibly a crazy dude, too. Because he sometimes puts himself in a position to where he could be swimming with sharks. And not in the metaphorical, Hollywood-sense. In the, “giant boat and shark-infested waters of the Pacific ocean”-sense.

Daniel Buerge of Laker Nation was kind enough to find this photo that Nike rep Heidi Burgett tweeted out on Thursday. After the jump, you’ll see a large picture of Bryant, pre-injury, as taken and explained by Nike’s Eric Avar:

Kevin Durant during Oklahoma City's final game on Wednesday (Getty Images)

With every season that ends, for the playoff teams at least, we felt it right to take a look ahead. TNT already has the rights to "Gone Fishin'," and because we're sure that someone, somewhere, still likes that Wyclef song, we're going with "Gone Till November." And, yes, we know the season starts in October. Today? The Oklahoma City Thunder.

Russell Westbrook’s knee injury may have cost his team an NBA title this season, but it could also go a long way towards saving coach and general manager Sam Presti a whole heck of a lot of criticism. To some Oklahoma City Thunder fans, that statement is just piling bad on top of bad.

Scorn for Brooks’ abilities date back two years at this point, and whether they come in the form of complaining about his limited mid-playoff adjustments or overreliance on certain vets, he’s taken quite a bit of heat following two straight five-game finishes to seasons in 2012 and now 2013. Presti, meanwhile, will receive tempered but certain criticism for his choices to ostensibly value contract extensions for Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka over one for Houston Rocket All-Star James Harden.

Both will be back next year, though. Brooks just finished the first year of a four year contract, and Presti has done so well in his first six years with the team that he’s earned several more years of goodwill. Both admirably and staunchly defended themselves (and by extension, the team’s owners) in the wake of the deal that sent James Harden to Houston, allowing for the team’s ownership to skate in the face of paying the luxury tax. On top of that, Westbrook’s season ending injury allows for most to consider the 2012-13 team a once-again championship contender that was just felled by bad luck at the worst possible time.

Cuttino Mobley gives his best 'GET ME OUT OF HERE!'-face (Getty Images)

Cuttino Mobley retired in 2008 at the too-early age of 32 years old. The former Houston Rockets standout was never an All-Star, but he was a solid starting-level shooting guard who mixed sound outside shooting with a point guard’s knowledge of spacing and timing. Mobley was being counted on in 2008 to act as a needed veteran buffer for a New York Knicks team in bad need of outside shooting, but an MRI revealed a heart condition (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) that encouraged the retirement.

At the time, Mobley said that the MRI “basically saved my life,” which flew in the face of a disappointing lawsuit Mobley brought up against the Knicks a few years later. In the suit, Cuttino alleged that the Knicks only asked Mobley to retire in order to realize luxury tax savings (for a roster that was already millions over the luxury tax) and to save money for the 2010 LeBron James-led offseason (completely incorrect in every way).

Years after that suit was sent away, the man they once called “Cat” is back to try and make one more NBA stab. It may be because his medical marijuana efforts have been smoked out, and it might be to spite the Knicks, but we’re guessing it’s mainly because Mobley still feels like he has something to contribute to an NBA team, and because he wants to go out on his own terms. Completely understandable.

Dwyane Wade somehow rose above in the deciding Game 5 (Getty Images)

Dwyane Wade may have entered the league less than a decade ago, and his youthful indiscretions may still making national news, but the man has been around for long enough to know how to drag a team to victory. The Miami Heat star worked his 158th playoff contest in Wednesday night’s Game 5, against a Chicago Bulls team he grew up rooting for. And despite a debilitating knee injury that forced him to hit the locker room to “re-adjust” (read: manually move his right kneecap back into place) during the third quarter, he still had enough to put his Heat over the top, and knock off the Bulls on Miami’s way to its fifth Eastern Conference final in the last nine years.

Wade dunked once in that pivotal fourth quarter, but the biggest damage he did to Chicago’s attack came by way of a loping, veteran style of misdirection movement, setting the Bulls’ defenders off course while raised for either in-between drives or long jumpers. Game 5 didn’t provide Wade the finest box score of his playoff career, but the setting and the stumbling blocks were enough to remind Heat fans of what a special player they’ve had the pleasure to have known since 2003.

Mike Conley fails to hold in a laugh (Getty Images)

A well-meaning cadre of NBA scribes probably has the notes for their “I told you so” columns regarding the Memphis Grizzlies already in place. If Memphis downs the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, taking to the Western Conference finals for the first time in the franchise’s history, the immediate instinct will be to point to the team’s 35-14 record (including a Game 5 win) since the supposedly franchise-crippling Rudy Gay trade, and to remind anyone reading that the Grizzlies knocked off the currently favored San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 2011 playoffs.

Such a crusade would probably be lead by this annoying mug, the only guy who picked Memphis over San Antonio in 2011, and one who routinely wears a Tony Allen T-shirt presumably outfitted with a pocket square and de rigueur protector for such pocket.

All those instincts should be tempered, though. Because exclaiming in that style after a potential Grizzlies second-round win would both over- and underestimate this team, all at once.

Joakim Noah. (Getty Images)

It’s a bit dicey to ask NBA fans to pull up their TVs (or, perhaps, the wonderfully multi-hued and -angled work of TNT Overtime) to take in a team that only managed to eke out 65 points (at home!) in its last game. A team that at times was a struggle to watch in years past, even when it had its best players roaming the court. You should probably watch what could be the Chicago Bulls’ final game of their 2012-13 season, though. Because NBA novelties usually don’t come more inspiring than this.

There is no way a team like this year’s Bulls should be playing an important basketball game on May 15. Spanning back to the late 1980s, you could pick highlight after playoff highlight of Bulls teams doing masterful and lasting things as May enters its second fortnight, but this particular squad is lost in comparison.

Save for the part where you get to all the buzzwords that Chicagoans hold so dear. The team competes. It doesn’t make excuses. It gives whatever it takes. All the eye-rolling features of a high school guidance counselor’s poster-filled walls actually apply to both generations of these Bulls teams.

We cropped the image of Dwyane Wade moving his kneecap around out (Getty Images)

It sounds like a condition severe enough to shut down most players for the remainder of their season, and one too painful for most players to even considering working through. Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade, though, is not most players. The man has been working through a series of injuries throughout his pro career, a group of mostly knee-related maladies that had many wondering if he would have to limp off into the sunset far earlier (like in 2008, or during last year’s playoffs) than his talent and drive would deserve.

Now we have news about how Wade handles his latest setback. Wade physically pushes his right kneecap into a less stressful and painful place before games so as to give his team productive minutes. Because the kneecap won’t stick, though, Wade has to move it back over with one of the myriad accessories he has to wear to minimize the stress and swelling that his body deals with over the course of a pro basketball game.

With the Heat up decidedly in their Eastern Conference semifinals over the Chicago Bulls, wouldn’t it seem right for Wade to sit out a game? He’s done it before, suiting up but not playing in the deciding Game 4 of his team’s first-round sweep of the Milwaukee Bucks because of the bone bruise in his knee, an injury that was made even worse in Game 4 after Dwyane bumped knees with Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler.

Wade appears to be having none of it, though. He’s officially listed as a game-time decision heading into Wednesday night’s Game 5. Which, in Wadesian terms, means the guy is playing. Is Wadesian thinking the correct approach, here?

J.R. Smith and Amar'e Stoudemire missed 16 of 24 shots in Game 4 (Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS – The Knicks attempted to find another gear against the Indiana Pacers’ all-world defense on Tuesday, but the engine repeatedly failed to even turn over for New York. Indiana kept up its stifling defense and opportunistic offense in the team’s 93-82 win in Game 4, sending the series back to New York with the once-favored Knicks down 3-1, just one loss away from the end of the team’s up and down season.

The Pacers managed to pull out the home victory by moving up and down the court more adeptly and confidently than before, as Indiana was able to establish a speedier attack early that sustained throughout the game due to New York’s miserable shooting. Just 10 fast break points for the Pacers in its win, but because the team was able to move into its offense off of all those long rebounds following New York misses, coach Frank Vogel’s crew kept the Knicks at arm’s length all night.

To New York’s credit, the team’s initial spacing looked much better than it did during losses in Games 1 and 3. Carmelo Anthony attempted to initiate more screen and roll basketball, a response to two weeks’ worth of criticism that came to a head when Knicks center Tyson Chandler demanded his team entertain the idea of actually moving the ball following the Game 3 loss. The Knicks tried, the team moved into its once-stagnant offense earlier in possessions and attempted to push during their own transition forays, but the Pacers did brilliant work in getting in the way of calm offensive waters for New York. The Knicks attempted just two fast break shots, and Indiana’s length once again led to a pitiful shooting night for the visitors.