What, more Kobe Bryant?

Yes, more Kobe Bryant. As opposed to, say, new Kobe Bryant.

But until we hear the accuser's side, the story of the woman whom Bryant allegedly assaulted, this is the grinding awfulness of this story. A dulling, pounding sameness that numbs the senses and turns debate into parrot arguments.

	That Kobe Bryant mixed contrition with his denial of guilt during Friday's press conference isn't anything we haven't seen time and again from athletes and celebrities in crisis.

We knew it would be thus when his tearful press conference with his wife began with the preemptive declaration, "We won't be taking questions." A charge became rote Clintonesque story-telling, I-never-did-anything morphed into well-I-never-did-that.

And of course everyone recognized it for what it was -- raw, naked spin, and graded it accordingly.

Now come the "mysterious" leaks aimed at painting the girl as patently unhinged -- the tales of the failed "American Idol" contestant, apparently distraught over the death of a friend, a teenager desperate for notice, and blah-de-blah-de-blah.

In other words, everything is working right on cynical schedule -- down to the list of recent arrested athletes and other miscellaneous celebrities for a quick round of compare-and-contrast.

And then we are left to parse for ourselves where this sits on the athletes-in-the-dock-o-meter.

We just saw the hearts-and-minds round, in which the first spins are aimed at the media, and then through the media at the jury pool and potential long-term apparel customers. And the horrible part of it all is this -- a Court TV reporter based in Denver speculated that with motions and the arguments on those motions, the trial would (A.) certainly happen, and (B.) wouldn't begin for as many as nine months.

We've gone through the "What could he have been thinking?" discussion, in which we re-discover that our cranky admonitions about never doing anything you'll be ashamed to later admit are blithely ignored, and on a daily basis.

We've also done the "This is why athletes can never be role models, because we don't know these people" bleat, knowing full well that we are always on the hunt for the next athletic role model. Kobe Bryant, meet LeBron James.

We've even done the "Well, you know, athletes are targets" sturm-und-drang, as though their only transgression is wearing the "Kick Me" sign in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And now, with the passage of a few days, it has become acceptable to start asking questions about how this will affect the Los Angeles Lakers.

It's all so painfully scripted, with everyone playing their roles as pre-assigned.

And it's all so painfully scripted because it happens so often, in sports, in show business, in politics. Someone gets accused of something, and the cards get played in order.

Denial.

Contrition, of a fashion, with a fresh denial chaser.

Stories of the accuser's uncertain past, and unrelated tales of young women as diabolical predators.

The Big Picture -- what does all this mean to (fill in the blank)?

And that's what annoys us so about Kobe Bryant, at least unless and until we learn what he might have done above and beyond extracurricular dating.

By acting the typical bulletproof multi-millionaire celebrity, he walked us through ground so plowed over that it feels like walking in dry sand. He triggered the ritualistic danse macabre that induces the legal system and the media to embarrass themselves in tandem. He unleashed forces which know only how they have behaved in similar cases, and in any event serve only to obfuscate and ultimately mangle the only truth worth knowing here.

	Hoping to stem the tide of "he said, she said," DA Mark Hurlbert preferred not to say much in announcing charges had been filed against Kobe Bryant.

Did he do to the woman what he is accused of?

Nothing more, nothing less: Did he do it?

But that leaves hundreds of billable hours, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 57 seconds of prime air time, and 30,000 paragraphs still unaccounted for every day between now and the start of the trial, if it ever comes to that.

So here, then, is what you need to know about Kobe Bryant between now and then.

He should have known better.

He chose not to.

He risked way too much for way too little.

He may be a criminal.

Everything else is the same walk along the same worn sidewalk that we've taken dozens of times before. We are all creatures of habit, and once we've seized on a formula that seems to work, we make sure our tire tracks follow the tracks left from the last one.

And nobody ever learns anything from history, because history is just tomorrow taking off its warm-ups.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com