NBA short takes

Whatever happened to just saying you're playing again Sunday?

Kobe Bryant announced his return after eight months away because of a torn Achilles' tendon by uploading a two-minute video to his Facebook page Friday. The professionally produced video — entitled "Seasons of Legend" — shows his No. 24 L.A. Lakers jerseys flapping in a dramatically lighted sky that transforms from clouds of creation into sleet, snow and pelting rain that tear the jersey before the sun returns and the jersey is made whole again.

The video ends like a Hollywood blockbuster movie trailer with these words on the screen: The Legend Continues … December 8.

Get your popcorn and watch him play Toronto, I guess.

Members of the San Antonio Spurs took off their shoes and played an informal, impromptu pickup game with school-kid members of Mexico's Trique Indian tribe during Tuesday's practice/clinic day in Mexico City while there for that game against the Timberwolves that never was played.

The children from Mexico's Oaxaca region play barefooted because they don't own shoes and won an international tournament recently.

"It just sort of happened since they were out there," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "It'll serve for good memories for those kids to have been out there with our guys."