By Mike Lopresti
Gannett News Service

Still no word from the district attorney in Colorado. That could be good news for Kobe Bryant. Or bad.

Still nothing official to feed the eager minicams, nothing concrete to fill the talk shows, which are on red alert. Nothing to tell us if this will end up an inferno, or a molehill in the mountains.

So it goes these days, not only for Bryant, but the wobbly NBA in general. The league is on uncomfortable hold as it yearns for refurbishment, refreshment and fewer unflattering headlines.

Before the Bryant mess, the NBA was busy hitching a large chunk of the future to an Ohio teenager, an iffy proposition of its own.

Now the league must wait to see if the Bryant case is all a bad dream. If there was nothing unsavory with a 19-year-old girl. Or if one of the purported good guys - one of the icons - actually must face a jury and the hooting outside. This at a time when part of the public already seemed to be turning away from pro basketball.

There are no clear answers or plain truths. Not about any of it. Summer is here in the NBA, and the world is full of maybes.

Certainly, the NBA's fervent hope is for an exonerated Bryant, so attention will not be distracted from more promising venues - such as 15,000 people watching LeBron James play exhibition basketball in July.

He is an active Cleveland Cavalier now, and there are important possibilities swirling all around him.

Maybe James can light a fire under the league. Maybe he will not get washed away by the excess, and be the face on Mount Rushmore so many expect. Maybe he is truly that good.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers are beginning to stockpile famous war horses. A Gary Payton here, a Karl Malone there. Soon, they might even have as many stars on the court as in the front row.

Maybe the Lakers will be so glamorous, they'd be impossible not to watch. Maybe they can return to dominance, bringing their television ratings with them.

A reconstituted Lakers powerhouse. A Magic Johnson impersonator not yet 20. There is promise in these developments. But everything goes on page 2 if charges against Bryant are handed down. It is a strange and unstable time when the Lakers can land a Payton, a Malone, and have that as only the second biggest basketball story of the week in Los Angeles.

This is hardly a good moment for dirty laundry, especially of one reputedly so clean. On the short list of possible reasons for any national retreat in NBA appeal is the number of its players who have been in trouble.

(As we speak, Portland's Damon Stoudamire answers another drug charge. ... Atlanta's Glenn Robinson faces suspension because of a domestic battery conviction. ... Orlando's Darrell Armstrong is accused of tussling with a female police officer).

The league could argue its rap sheet is no worse than any other sport. But there are undoubtedly cracks in the tolerance of NBA behavior by some of the customers. They have been asked to forgive a lot. It will be a hard day if they have to be asked to forgive Kobe.

For the moment, this is a story in the half-light, complex and high-stakes. Like so much else in the NBA, an unsettled maybe.

Mike Lopresti is a columnist for Gannett News Service.