Kobe's crossover

From the glow of the TV screen he stares out at you. Powerful. Confident. "The thing about my next move," says the man once charged with sexual assault, "by the time you see it, it already happened."

Whoa. If those words came from any other man charged with rape, I might not have believed what I was seeing. But hey, it's not a sex predator sharing his M.O. on the five o'clock news. It's Kobe Bryant, basketball superstar, in a Nike ad, bragging about his crossover dribble.

Less than three years ago, Kobe stood trial in Colorado, his reputation ruined and his life on the line. Down the toilet went the four-year, $45 million deal Kobe had inked with Nike mere weeks before he was accused. After all, how could you market someone who, despite an innocent verdict, was still largely considered a rapist? In America's collective conscience, Kobe was guilty, no matter what the court said, ?Ae? la O.J. Simpson.

Lucky for the Los Angeles Lakers' phenom, there's one thing people love more than their villains: their heroes, and more importantly, their winners.

A league-leading 35.1 points per game later, Kobe is back in the spotlight, standing atop Nike's basketball shoe empire with a series of new commercials. The climax of the comeback? A single-game 81-point barrage on Jan. 22 that had sportswriters nationwide drooling. With those 81 points, Kobe single-handedly propelled himself into the sports stratosphere. Poof. All sins forgotten. Rape? What rape?

When I first saw Kobe's new shoe commercials, I couldn't help but think that somewhere in Nike's Oregon headquarters, an old adage had been proven true: win, and little else matters.

Check out another one of Kobe's ads with Nike: Love me or hate me. It's one or the other. It always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fade-away, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran, a champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved for the exact same reasons.

No, this is what you should hate: few men charged with sexual assault would get a second chance like Kobe has. He can score 81 points in a game and his statistics will transcend the man, whereas a teacher at a public school would be fired in a heartbeat and probably blacklisted. No one is going to quite as easily forgive a professor accused of rape because, like Kobe, he does his job so damn well.

But wait, you say, what about an athlete like the aforementioned O.J.? Well, O.J. never had a chance to redeem himself on the playing field. Today, Kobe is once again a mega-star, the best at his position. So is Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens, who was arrested for murder in 2000 but came back to re-establish himself as a premier linebacker.

O.J.'s problem was that his last hurrah was a murder trial rather than a 90-yard dash to the end zone.

All of which brings me to Barry Bonds, baseball's steroid-stained slugger who entered spring training last week on the verge of passing Babe Ruth on the all-time home runs list. Most of the country is rooting against Bonds, myself included. So, where's his second chance? If Kobe's comeback shows that winning is all that matters today, where is Bonds' media hype? Where are his Nike commercials?

But Bonds, you see, is no Kobe. He was a fearsome hitter for his raw ability, and steroids certainly didn't power all those home runs, but today, the Giants' outfielder is a disgrace to baseball. The Vince Lombardi truism -- "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" -- isn't infallible. Bonds cheated in pursuing a Holy Grail, the home run record, and that, like some taboos, just cannot be forgiven. Rape? Yeah, that's okay. After all, it has nothing to do with how you play the game.

Besides, unlike Kobe, nobody liked Bonds to begin with. Kobe was never the most charismatic athlete, but he has always been tremendously marketable. Consider Terrell Owens, who is arguably the most hated athlete on Earth right now. But where was the vilification when he was carrying the Eagles on his back in the Super Bowl? He was a jackass then too, and sportswriters and fans were worshipping at his feet. I'm willing to bet that if the Eagles were undefeated at the time they cut Owens loose, the star receiver would never have been suspended. He will be back, though, as loud as he ever was, because the bottom line is that with his mouth and his game, he puts butts in the seats and eyes on the TV.

Bonds? At this point, he's a baseball freak show. Kobe? He's must-see TV, even if you don't know a lick about basketball. And that, in sports, is priceless. Even more so than a verdict of not guilty.