Kobe Bryant did not suit up for the exhibition finale Thursday against Denver and was called "questionable to doubtful" by a team official for Tuesday's season opener against Phoenix.

He has said he wants to play, but whether his knee will be fully recovered from off-season surgery is another question.

"I don't know. We'll see," Bryant said Thursday. "I worked out really, really hard [Thursday]. We'll see how it feels in the morning. This is the hardest workout I had. I ran about an hour straight, just doing line drills and things like that. Then I went and shot the ball. It was a little sore afterwards, a little sore now, but nothing major. The big thing is always the next day."

The Lakers aren't pressing him to play in the opener, or the next day against Golden State, keeping in mind the 82-game season.

"We as an organization, we're not going to gamble and try to bring him back too early," assistant coach Kurt Rambis said. "If he feels like that's all the time that he needs and it responds well, and he goes out there and stresses it the way that it needs to be stressed to handle the rigors of playing an NBA game, and it doesn't bother him the following day, he can make that decision."