YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

The face that's launching the NBA into the new millennium is like one of those computer-generated composites.

You look at Kobe Bryant and you see Earl Monroe's spin move and Bob Cousy's creativity and Maurice Cheeks' defensive conscience and Jerry West's iron will and Oscar Robertson's fundamentals and Julius Erving's drives and Magic Johnson's showmanship and Larry Bird's jumper and Michael Jordan's haughty repudiation of failure.

The picture is striking, but you don't dare frame it. You're smart enough to recognize the folly of trying to impose boundaries on evolution.

All the people coming out of the hardwood to proclaim Bryant ``the next Michael Jordan'' are horribly misguided. How dare they sell Bryant short like that. I mean, did the advancement of the human race stop with Cro-Magnon Man?

Bryant is 22 years old. He's young enough to blow the borders off anybody's view of him. Already he's bumping his head on the most celestial of ceilings and we don't mean the Sistine Chapel.

Who knows? At the rate Bryant's game is growing, the House of Jordan might prove too confining.

``I don't know about that,'' Bryant said. In the next breath, he added: ``People are comparing me to Michael Jordan. I think that should stop. I'm my own person.''

Rough translation: You haven't seen anything yet.

But of course. The natural order of things dictates that someone will come along and take Jordan's game and improve upon it. What is the theory of evolution if not a blueprint for progression from one generation to the next?

``That's a good point,'' forward Horace Grant said the other day at practice.

Grant, you'll remember, fueled the debate over whether Bryant is or isn't Jordan's heir apparent during the Western Conference finals when he likened him to his former Bulls teammate.

Jordan has been the gold standard for so long, it hadn't occurred to Grant that adjustments might have to be made to reflect the strength of today's market. Grant mulled it over. The next day, when asked again how Bryant measured up to Jordan, Grant replied, ``He's the next Kobe.''

``I thought of the comparisons to Michael,'' Grant said. ``You don't want to set limitations on a guy like Kobe.''

Exactly.

Grant isn't the only one who has come around. Phil Jackson set the bar for Bryant - pretty high, he thought - only to watch him leap over it as if he were Stacy Dragila.

``I'm asking him to do so much,'' the Lakers' second-year coach said, ``and he's accomplishing it.''

Jackson coached Jordan, so he has had the absolute best seat to view basketball's evolution. We're all pretty lucky that way, to be able to see evolution occurring in front of our eyes and not over eons.

Bryant's performance in the postseason, Jackson said, ``I think (is) the best that I've ever seen a player of mine play with an overall court game.''

Blasphemy? No. Darwinism.

You watch Kobe Bryant these days and you see the same fallaway jumper that Jordan used to deadly effect, the same communion with the air, the same competitive barbarity.

The step-on-your-throat ferocity that San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich observed in Bryant is like the development of the thumb in man; it's a hereditary characteristic that is helpful in scaling evolution's ladder.

Jordan thrived because simply succeeding wasn't enough. So it is with Bryant, who seemingly has all of Jordan's characteristics plus an acquired characteristic that he picked up to survive in the environment unique to the Lakers.

Bryant has adapted his game to peacefully co-exist with another alpha male, something Jordan didn't have to worry his pretty bald head about in Chicago. Every Bulls possession belonged to Jordan. Scottie Pippen could say he was the second option, but he was really no better than third, after Jordan and Jordan.

``I never asked Michael to be a playmaker,'' Jackson said. ``I asked him to be a playmaker when he was doubled or tripled, but Kobe's been asked to set up the offense, to advance the ball, to read the defense, to make others happy and he's doing a great job of it.''

By learning how to play alongside Shaquille O'Neal, Bryant has advanced not only his game but the game. Because somewhere there is a steely-eyed youngster, copying Bryant's moves - as Bryant once did the Pearl's and Doctor J's and Magic's and Michael's, all so that he might some day improve upon them.

In doing so, he'll carry the game - palm it, if you will - to the next level.

It'll happen, sure as Bryant is bowling you over today. And when it does, you'll be reminded anew that sports is but a speck on the space-time continuum.

Until then, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

``If he keeps putting on shows like he has lately,'' said Lakers guard Ron Harper of Bryant, ``who knows how good he'll be?''

It does him an injustice to even guess.