By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
August 26, 2004

Kobe Bean Bryant turned 26 years old Monday, but it was likely the most muted celebration of his young life.

That's because the course the remainder of his life takes will soon be put in the hands of 12 strangers who will know little about the man who stands before them — but a wealth of information about what may, or may not, have happened in his hotel room the night of June 30, 2003.

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Knowing the essence of the man on trial could be as hard as reaching the core of a prized diamond — the exterior glistens and awes; but it's extremely difficult to penetrate.

The world has watched for more than a year as Bryant — seemingly caught in the purgatory of an endless Groundhog Day-caliber tape loop — has strided in and out of the Eagle County Justice Center, expressing no emotion on his slow-motion journey toward an uncertain fate.

His celebrity and his riches have bought him considerable insulation — and isolation.

For example, when Newsweek recently reported that Bryant's alleged victim might not want to testify in the criminal case, the magazine reported "There's a long sigh of relief" from Bryant — attributing that stop-the-presses detail only to "a close associate."

Sportwsriter Howard Beck covered the Lakers for seven years, starting with Bryant's second season after arriving in the NBA as an 18-year-old prodigy out of the upscale Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion, Pa.

"I think most people who have been in contact with Kobe during his Laker career — teammates, coaches, reporters — would tell you he is very difficult to get to know beyond a surface level," said Beck.

"There's obviously a great depth to Kobe as an individual ... But he's not very generous in terms of giving up himself. He lets almost no one in. He has a very, very tight circle of people who he keeps close.

"He, himself, has admitted to me before that he is not a very trusting person is very hard to earn his trust, and it is very easy to lose his trust."

Since he was booked at the Eagle County Sheriff's Department July 4, 2003 on the class-three felony charge of sexual assault with the use of force, he has spent at least part of 21 days in court.

Those appearances offered little insight into the man. He uttered a grand total of six words in those 21 appearances, offering a "No, sir," at his first appearance Aug. 6, 2003, followed by a "Yes, sir," and a "Not guilty" at his May 11 arraignment.

On no fewer than five occasions, Bryant made it from a day in court to a basketball arena in another state that same night, not only playing, but excelling.

But Bryant's team was ultimately drummed out of the NBA Finals by the Detroit Pistons. With the exception of one game, in which Bryant led the Lakers to a dramatic overtime win, Bryant drew heavy criticism for playing selfishly, taking too many shots and sinking too few.

Bill Simmons, a columnist for ESPN The Magazine, unloaded on Bryant in the wake of his team's defeat by labeling him "an impossible prima donna behind the scenes, a brooding loner consumed with basketball and nothing else, someone lacking the requisite social skills to get along with teammates on even a rudimentary level."

Perhaps Bryant's failure in the clutch can be blamed on his lack of court time — in Eagle, that is. The court schedule, coincidentally, called for no pretrial hearings during the NBA Finals.

"If he's got a chip on his shoulder, if he's got something to prove, if something has been going on that has brought extra attention to him, personally or professionally, he does seem to channel that into his game," said Beck.

"He's always had that ability to block out the worst, or use it to his advantage."

But Bryant has been helpless to stop the retreat of his big-ticket corporate partners. McDonald's, the most recent to sever its ties with Bryant, opted not to renew its pact, valued by the trade publication Advertising Age at $20 million to $22 million a year, when his three-year deal expired Dec. 31.

Such is the stigma of a rape charge that even should Bryant be acquitted in criminal court, no one is betting on the big-bucks corporate partners returning to Bryant with their checkbooks open — particularly with a federal civil lawsuit now also pending against him.

Nevertheless, NBA-licensed jerseys bearing Bryant's name ranked seventh this year among the league's best-selling gear. And despite playing the most recent season under the darkest of clouds, he finished fourth in fan voting for the NBA All-Star game.

Vanessa Bryant, the glamorous 22-year-old mother of the couple's 1 1/2-year-old daughter Natalia, was a frequent courtside sight, with her child, at most Lakers' home games this past season. She has given no sign of wavering in her support of the man who raised eyebrows by buying her a $4 million diamond ring not long after his arrest.

For Bryant to win acquittal and go on to earn his new $136.4 million, seven-year Lakers contract, it is widely presumed he will have to take the stand and testify. If Bryant does so, perhaps when he is through, the world might know this remote superstar a little better.

But maybe not.

Jeff Benedict is the author of a new book, Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence & Crime.

In his book, Benedict writes, "Seeing so much of NBA players through television, we think we know them. This greatly inhibits our ability to picture them as rapists or wife beaters when our only point of reference is seeing them hit a game-winning shot or hefting a cheeseburger on television on behalf of a fast-food restaurant.

"In reality, we don't know these players at all."

brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742

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