Sam Smith

LAS VEGAS - He was sitting around with the big guys, the legends, and he was being embraced, just one of the guys, who they said Kobe Bryant never could be. Never was, never would be. Aloof, they said. Selfish, self centered, not the guy's kind of guy. If they gave him a cigar, it would have a fuse in it.

But there was Bryant this weekend with Michael Jordan and Dr. J, the famed Julius Erving, the guy who handed that mythical torch of NBA excellence and excitement to Jordan, who really had no one to give it to.

"We pretty much talked trash the whole time. It was unbelievable," Bryant said with a smile of satisfaction seemingly wider than the one he'd displayed a few minutes earlier in holding aloft the MVP trophy for the NBA All-Star Game as he led the West team to a 153-132 rout with 31 points, six assists and six steals. "You get guys in the same room who are extremely competitive and you start comparing records and sneaker technology and what a guy would have done if they had the technology we had. Comparing hand size and who can palm a basketball and who can do what."

Kobe Bryant, just one of the guys? Not just guys, but the greatest guys.

Perhaps more than anything, that is what he secretly yearned for, as excellence alone wasn't enough.

"These are things that are fun to talk about," Bryant told reporters after the game about his backroom conversations with fellow slam dunk contest judges and legends. "As a kid, I never thought I would be in the back chopping it up with Dr. J and Mike and Dominique Wilkins. That's something I'll remember forever. We had a blast."

It was an unremarkable NBA All-Star game here Sunday, as most truly are.

A long time ago midseason exhibition games were played with somewhat more enthusiasm. But now they have become an all-sports weekend trade show and convention for sponsors and clients, an opportunity for players to increase their exposure and already huge bank accounts with corporate crossover.

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Forget the dribble crossover; the corporate crossover is much more lucrative.

They hold the games and a myriad of contests during the weekend just to keep everyone around, spending money, making contacts and promises.

The players come out and dunk a little bit and show off some of their favorite video game moves and usually the games get close at the end and there's an entertaining four minutes of action. Not this time as the bigger, stronger, more talented West led from the start and by 30 or more during part of the second half.

The hometown stepped up, to use the NBA cliche, with an opening of showgirls, then Siegfried and Roy and Wayne Newton. You half-expected Frank, Dean and Sammy to be next. There was a halftime event with singers Christina Aguilera and Toni Braxton, jugglers, Elvis impersonators, dancers, acrobats and magicians.

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Perhaps the most amazing one is Bryant, who is making an ugly reputation and recent history from his sexual assault case disappear like perhaps never before in this commercial age of sports. It's one thing to rehabilitate an image on the basketball court, where the points and victories are the judge. But it's another to do it and come back from disgrace in the world of the public and business.

Bryant is headed to the USA Basketball team next summer, his Nike contract reportedly is being renewed, he won a big video game contract over James, his new No. 24 jersey is No. 1 in sales in the NBA and he was named a judge of the Saturday dunk contest with the legends like Michael Jordan and Julius Erving.

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