Cuban Missile Crisis
The NBA is shocked, shocked over Kobe Bryant hype.

Friday, August 8, 2003 12:01 A.M. EDT

Puh-leeeeez. Can we all agree that the indignant professions of shock over Mark Cuban's remark that the rape charges against NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant might actually boost business have a slightly tinny sound? It's the same kind of sound Claude Rains's Captain Renault makes in that famous scene in "Casablanca," when he declares that he's "shocked, shocked to discover gambling going on" in Rick's Cafe only moments before one of Humphrey Bogart's croupiers hands him his winnings.

The Dallas Mavericks' owner made his first remarks on the subject to the Associated Press. But this Cuban missile didn't really launch until a sound bite taken from an interview he gave "Access Hollywood" was broadcast coast to coast. "From a business perspective," Mr. Cuban said, "it's great for the NBA. It's reality television. People love train-wreck television and you hate to admit it, but that is the truth. That's the reality today."

Now, it's true that much of the derision heaped on Mr. Cuban since stems not so much from his business assessment as from what was seen as his moral indifference to its implications. Mr. Cuban has since been quoted as saying that in hindsight he wishes he chose his words more carefully. But he's not backed down on the substance of his claim--that notoriety sells these days. And the truth is that there's no reason he should.

Not that notoriety isn't without its attendant dangers, which nobody appreciates more than David Stern, the estimable NBA commissioner who has done yeoman's work rescuing the league from its drug-riddled image of the 1970s and 1980s. "Any suggestion that there will be some economic or promotional benefit to the NBA arising from the charge pending against Kobe Bryant is both misinformed and unseemly," Mr. Stern said. Unseemly, definitely. But misinformed?

It's hard not to observe that in American life today, notoriety isn't the one-way ticket to ostracism and penury it once was. Wasn't it Latrell Sprewell who choked his coach and winked at it in a subsequent TV spot for And 1 basketball shoes, referring to his reputation as "America's worst nightmare"? Likewise Mike Tyson may have the IRS and creditors at his door today, but a rape conviction didn't stop him from going on to make millions of dollars from boxing--and chewing off a bit of Evander Holyfield's ear only seemed to add to the perverse attraction. It's not just the bad boys of sports, either. We seem to recall a certain intern who ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars and getting several TV gigs even as her first name became a synonym for a sexual act.

We, of course, are in no position to know whether or not Kobe Bryant raped that hotel clerk. And we would like to believe, as Mr. Stern implies, that there does exist a line somewhere that, once crossed, will lead fans to desert athletes they've concluded are a bunch of overpaid and oversexed brats running amok. It's not Mr. Cuban's fault for pointing out that it's a line that many of us have yet to see.