It looks like the trial isn't marring teams interest in superstar Kobe Bryant. The Phoenix Suns will attempt to woo Bryant, and Atlanta, Denver and San Antonio may also try. Bryant might even join the Lakers' next-door neighbors, the Los Angeles Clippers.

"He's universally looked at as one of best players in the league," Rod Thorn, president of the Nets, said. "Other than this instance, he's never had any scandal attached to him at all in the course of his life. This is certainly a sad thing, but he's a terrific player that kid."

Every N.B.A. contract includes a morals clause, which gives teams the right to terminate a player's contract under certain circumstances.

One of the provisions states that a team may terminate a contract if a player "at any time fails, refuses or neglects to conform his personal conduct to standards of good citizenship, good moral character (defined here to mean not engaging in acts of moral turpitude, whether or not such acts would constitute a crime), and good sportsmanship, to keep himself in first-class physical condition, or to obey the team's training rules."

In Bryant's case, a team will know before signing him that he may have violated the morals clause. "In this case, you know this going in," Thorn said. "This is not a case where a team signs a guy and then he does something. Everybody knows what's going on with him before they sign him. It's kind of like when we signed Alonzo Mourning. Everybody knew he had a kidney condition. And when that condition sidelined him, after the fact, it was like, 'That's your tough luck.' "