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Walking to work this morning I couldn't help but think about Kobe Bryant. We've seen some trade action this summer, but the one big domino that has not even come close to falling, it would seem, is that of Mr. Bryant.

And when I got here, I fired up my computer and lo and behold that very same story is headling this here website. ESPN's Ric Bucher writes what I have heard from multiple sources over the summer: Kobe Bryant is still not happy with the Lakers.

Just understand this, in lieu of Bryant telling you himself: If he was boiling about the Lakers for not jumping at the chance to get Jason Kidd at the trade deadline, he's now at the stage where the water has evaporated and the bone-dry pot is scorched and rattling, after having a firsthand taste of what playing with Kidd is like at the Team USA minicamp last month.

His directness did not go over well, so now Kobe skirts questions about his Lakers future.

Kidd, by several accounts, was an absolute wonder during the three-day training session in Las Vegas and equally thrilled about playing with Bryant.

"No question," said someone close to Bryant, "his frustration was made worse by Vegas."

In these situations, it helps to search history for conventional wisdom. People have been convincing, saying stuff like: "Oh, of course he'll settle down and come on back to the winningest franchise in NBA history -- the team that holds his exclusive rights. Besides, any GM could tell you that you simply never trade a player of that caliber."

But at the same time, others have been equally persuasive making cases along these lines: "Kobe Bryant holds all the cards. What's the value of the Lakers without Kobe Bryant? Who's going to buy a ticket to see Luke Walton and Derek Fisher? Kobe's arguably the best player in the game and inargubably one of the biggest names in sports. He does not need the friggin' Lakers to get on TV whenever he wants to be on TV. If he's determined to hold out, the Lakers will get pennies on the dollar."

What happens when arguably the best player in the league gets into a public death match with his own team?

Searching the old memory banks. Hmm ... Can't say I've ever seen anything like that before.

Which means that as far as I can tell, there is no conventional wisdom here.

Which feels about right.

I honestly can't tell you if I think he's coming back to the Lakers or not. Trading him would be crazy, but there's a crazy feeling in the air this time around, isn't there?

What I can say, with certainty, is that this summer represents Kobe Bryant at a crossroads: Will history remember Kobe Bryant as a champion, or as a lone gunner who lucked into a massive teammate, and some titles, early in his career?

To put it another way: Is he Michael Jordan, or Pete Maravich? A decade into his career, somehow both are still possible, and he only has a few years to help us figure that out.

The weirdest part of this deal is that by forsaking his Laker teammates -- the perfect hallmark of a solitary vagabond -- he could end up on a much better Chicago team (his rumored most likely destination), where I'd bet on him winning at least one more title and vastly improving his standing in history.

But if he were to embrace the Lakers and make the best of it, it's hard to picture Kobe Bryant leading a Laker team out of the West again, and he could go down in history as someone who rode Shaquille O'Neal's coattails.

Life's funny like that sometimes. And unpredictable as all get out. There could be plenty more twists in this road. (Kids: don't take any lessons from this. It's weirder than real life.)

As I think about this, it occurs to me: I'm pretty sure Kobe Bryant has had these same thoughts. And I'm pretty sure that might be part of the reason that, long after the mood of his initial outburst must have passed (Could he really still be angry at that "Laker Insider" who said Bryant was behind the O'Neal trade?), Bryant's still not extending the slightest fig leaf olive branch to the Lakers.

Getting traded to Chicago appears to be sensible, and rageful Bryant might be the only one that can make it happen.

Now, I think plenty of you hard-core Kobe Bryant fans are probably reading this and thinking: "HOLD THE PHONE HERE, ABBOTT. He's the best freaking player in the game and you know it. He's Michael Jordan with a chaotic front office, that's all. To call him a lone wolf would be to ignore the facts."

Yeah, I get that. But I also get that history's lone wolves have always been just this close to getting it all together. Close doesn't count when it comes to making history.

Just for fun, I flipped open Mark Kriegel's book "Pistol," on Pete Maravich. Maravich was an unbelievable player -- by many accounts the very best of his day -- and an incredibly hard worker. He was also moody, repeatedly the victim of circumstance, and ultimately not a player who won his fair share of NBA games.

Might Bryant one day be seen like that?

When you think about Bryant, many parts of Kriegel's book seem almost eerie. For instance: The 1977-78 New Orleans Jazz -- coached by Elgin Baylor -- have retooled with some better players around Maravich (Truck Robinson, who put up big numbers, joined Gail Goodrich, Rich Kelley, Aaron James and others) but are having trouble adjusting to the reality that Maravich so dominates the ball. Early in the season some are saying the team needed more ball movement, and others even argue the Jazz would be better without their megastar.

Kriegel writes:

Pete responded to the ball movement critique on a November night in New York. The score remained close, despite the fact that he declined to put up a single shot in the fourth quarter. After the game, a fifth consecutive loss, an anonymous teammate took him to task in the press for "not making sacrifices."

"If they want me to sacrifice, I'll sacrifice," said Pete, who went 4 of 5 while handing out 15 assists in the next game, a win over Seattle. Then, a couple of nights later, he was back to his old self, scoring 39, including the game-winning basket with 15 seconds left on the clock.

To pass or to shoot? Given Pete's excessive nature, these pendulum swings can be seen as his attempt to find some balance in his game, and his life. As ever, Pete was a creature of contradictions. On one hand, as if bent on proving his critics right, he had taken to wearing a pendant with the emblem "ME 1st." On the other, his reputation for generosity among teammates was unrivaled.

The problem, at least as it manifested itself on the court, was that ever since high school, the best way for Pete's team to win had been for Pete to shoot. He took all the shots, just as he took the pressure. He had been on his own for so long he had to learn how to play well with others. "I don't think it was ever a question of Pete being selfish," says Baylor. "He just felt more confidence in his own ability to get the job done than [in] the others'. But I kept talking to him and talking to him and talking to him, and finally I got him to play in a way that was beneficial to the team. He was getting his teammates involved, not taking burden so much on himself, not trying to win games on his own."

(It worked beautifully, by the way: that season Maravich led a turnaround of the Jazz, who were on their way to better days until Maravich severely injured his knee at the end
of January.)

Haven't we also watched Bryant stare down his critics with stretches when, just like Maravich, he refused to shoot? Isn't that quote from Baylor something we've heard reiterated in various forms a hundred times by those around Bryant?

I know Pete Maravich and Kobe Bryant are different players from different times. But I also know that Bryant and Maravich wrestle with some of the same demons.

Decades from now, will we look back at Kobe Bryant's career as one of repeated triumph, or, like Maravich, as one of lightning that could not be caught in a bottle? I don't know. But I'm certain that whatever happens this summer -- whether Bryant makes the best of it in Los Angeles, stays at war with his team but plays anyway, or manages to be traded -- will somehow or another go a long way to determining that.

(Photo: Getty Images/Noah Graham)