There’s No Way to Shrug Off Details

It was only an allegation. It was only one side of the story. It was she said, she said.

But Thursday’s vivid testimony accusing Kobe Bryant of rape provided a glimpse into the darkness that has enveloped him, the fight that has weakened him, and the question that confronts those who play basketball with him.

How can the Lakers possibly count on Kobe Bryant this season?

How can the Lakers rely on him to be anything more than a shell of himself?

How can they depend on him to win a simple game of hoops while occupied in a trial for his life?

The answer is, they can’t.

If Phil Jackson was watching what we were watching Thursday, then he knows he needs to reshape basketball’s most exciting team without its most exciting player.

The Fab Four must become The Big Three.

If Bryant decides he will continue to play, fine, he has the constitutional right, he has the guaranteed contract, and Gary Payton will certainly pass him the ball.

But he’s not going to be the same, not even close, and how can he be?

Even before Thursday’s preliminary hearing in Eagle, Colo., we knew he had changed.

He showed up one day late to camp without a good excuse. He showed up underweight, bearing tattoos and preaching religion. And he showed up saying basketball wasn’t very important anymore.

There was mild shock, but there was also the thought that this apathy wouldn’t last, that his surgically repaired knee will heal, that his competitive zeal would return.

There was the thought that basketball, presently his burden, would ultimately be his escape.

But now we have seen there can be no escape.

The words of Eagle County Sheriff’s Det. Doug Winters on Thursday unleashed a storm cloud that will hover over Bryant until he has a chance to reply during the trial, which is unlikely to occur until this summer, allowing that cloud to shadow a season.

He is no longer a player accused of rape.

He is a player accused of bending a 19-year-old woman over a chair and penetrating her from behind while his hands grabbed her neck.

And he’s going to shrug this off to hit a last-second shot?

He is no longer a player accused of assaulting a young woman.

He is a player accused of demanding that she kiss his penis before leaving his room.

And over all this, he’s going to dunk?

Walking out of the courtroom, Bryant looked haggard, confused, unlike anybody that should even be thinking about triangle offenses or triple-doubles.

The world had just been allowed a peek at the depths of the mess he has created for himself. His expression read, dark. His body language read, bottomless.

That thing he said in Hawaii about the pressure of a seventh game being nothing compared to this? Suddenly, that was more than hyperbole.

That time he talked about not being in shape because he couldn’t work past the stress? We get it.

And now he’s going to bring all this into a locker room filled with prying media, then to courts surrounded by hecklers, all while trying to rehab his knee and hone his jumper?

He might have once been Wonder Boy, but he’s never been Superman.

And you wonder why many legal experts said Bryant’s attorneys should have waived this preliminary hearing?

If they had headed straight for a trial that could have been delayed until the summer, the accusations would have remained ambiguous, and eventually the heat would have been turned down to a simmer, and perhaps he could have finished the year in relative peace.

Not now.

Things will now boil until the trial, not only for him, but for his fellow Lakers, a dream team that has been unfairly dragged into Bryant’s nightmare season.

The Lakers are too classy to say that they would rather play without him until the trial is finished. They are too smart to say that they might even have a better chance of winning without his distractions.

But would you blame them for thinking it?

This season was supposed to be a victory tour, not a vitriol tour. Gary Payton and Karl Malone were willing to sacrifice money, not focus.

During training camp, Bryant asked that he not be given a podium for addressing the media, because he wanted to be treated like every other player.

That charade is over.

During training camp, the Lakers talked as if they couldn’t wait for the old Kobe Bryant to reappear.

That vision is dead.

Today being media day, the team again will be unfairly dragged through the Colorado mud, a potential championship dogged by two questions.

Will you welcome Kobe Bryant back this season? Are you expecting Kobe Bryant back this season?

The answers should be yes, and no.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.