BRYANT ABLE TO MAINTAIN PERSPECTIVE.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Kobe Bryant's world is a basketball spinning on fate's finger. Once set in motion, it has become a revolution, twirling on its own momentum.

For the Lakers' second-year guard, the dizzying events of the past 18 months, which have seen him go from the halls of Lower Merion High to the hallowed hardwood floors of the NBA, came into sharp focus the other day.

Bryant was driving around L.A. with his sister, Shaya, when he glanced out the car window and saw a teen-ager walking down the street wearing his Adidas signature sneaker. It was the first time Bryant had seen the shoes on somebody else's feet and it left his tongue tied in double knots.

For someone who grew up hoarding his allowance, his lunch money and his mother's grocery change so he could buy the sneakers endorsed by his idols Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, there was no greater sign - not even the billboard bearing his likeness in Amsterdam - that he had arrived.

``It was so unexpected,'' Bryant said before a recent game. ``I can't describe what it felt like to see that.''

His awed tone suggested he wasn't simply paying lip service to sensibility when he added, ``I'm just kind of in (the sneaker business) for the thrill.''

The NBA has spawned a closet industry in sneaker apparel, with model lines and extensive campaigns built around the likes of Jordan, Bryant's teammate Shaquille O'Neal and Orlando's Anfernee Hardaway. It's all part of a business that's growing faster than a child's foot, with $13 billion in sales expected this year in the U.S. alone.

Sole men in the NBA might be de rigueur, but a sixth man with his own signature shoe deal? It's unprecedented, but then, Bryant isn't your mainstream phenom.

He has all the makings of stardom but few of its trappings. Never mind wearing his shoes, the NBA's next generation of fans could do a lot worse than to follow in Bryant's footsteps.

Certainly, this generation of parents has done a lot worse than Joe and Pam Bryant, to whom O'Neal paid the ultimate compliment recently when he said, ``I can tell hanging around Kobe that he was raised very well.''

His parents named him after a type of steak they saw on a menu, but they always encouraged him to be his own cut of kid. So it is that from his head to his toes, Bryant eschews the fashions that have turned so many of his peers into caricatures.

There's his hair, which he has let grow out in an Afro, following in his father's follicles as well as his footsteps. And while he doesn't wear his shorts as short as they did in the days Joe ``Jellybean'' Bryant played in the NBA, you can at least confirm that he has knees.

The 6-foot-7 swingman is proof that less can be more distinctive. He bears none of the tattoos and gold jewelry that so many of his peers wear, ostensibly to accent their individuality.

His shoe label is an understated ``KB8'', not ``Heir Bryant'' or ``Hang Eight'' as you might expect. Even his black-and-white sneakers seem subdued in a world that peddles as many shades of blue as Bryant has moves to the basket.

The only thing truly gaudy about Bryant is his game. No question, ``Showboat'' refers to the kid, not his canoe-sized shoes. On the court, his sinewy body goes this way and that like an untied shoelace. His athleticism and aggressiveness is at once his boon and coach Del Harris' burden.

Harris would like to see Bryant, 19, tone down his acrobatic dribble-drives and regulate his perimeter shooting so his game fits comfortably within the parameters of the team scheme. Toward that end, there was a videotape marked ``Kobe's touches vs. San Antonio'' resting in his locker a half-hour after the Lakers' 98-88 win over the Spurs last week at the Forum.

``He oftentimes tries to do too much,'' Harris said.

The Lakers can't go anywhere these days without Bryant drawing comparisons to Jordan. ``Yeah,'' Harris said, ``but the big thing about Michael Jordan is that he doesn't try to do something every time. He is a master at picking his spots. He keeps the defense off-balance that way and he keeps his teammates happy.''

Happiness to Bryant is having a new pair of shoes for every game, though he tries to be more sensible than that, wearing a pair three or four times before designating them for a charity or simply giving them away to a fan. When helping to design his shoe, Bryant was adamant that the soles be flexible enough to move with the feet. The result is something that looks fit for an astronaut, which is exactly the point; Bryant wants his shoes to be suitable for liftoff.

Bryant might as well have been describing the NBA, which seems to be going off in one direction while the old guard stands its ground. The league's marquee players - Jordan, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, John Stockton and Karl Malone among them - are getting long in the tooth. The next-of-wunderkind could use a little breaking in; as a group they are opening some fresh wounds with their penchant for points, assists and arrests.

Is Bryant the bandage the NBA needs? Will he and other players such as Keith Van Horne and Tim Duncan be able to heal the league's image, much as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did before them?

``Hopefully,'' Bryant said, more softly than usual, ``it won't come to that.''