Innocent until proven guilty(and, IMO, innocent will be the final verdict given what we know thus far), yeah, that\'s how it works. But, now that he\'s officially on trial, who\'s to say him playing wouldn\'t just be a distraction? He could use this as motivation...or it could just give him the worst season of his life. Plus...say the Lakers do play awesome...the wins just keep rolling in. You know after every game, it doesn\'t matter how many points he puts up, all the reporters are going to want to talk about is the rape case. That would have to be demoralizing for him and his team.
So I vote no.
Either way, with or without him, I don\'t see the Lakers winning a championship this season. The Mavericks and T-Wolves are looking pretty stacked themselves...