NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The National Basketball Association's biggest problem right now starts with the letter "K," but it's not Kobe, it's the Knicks.

Kobe Bryant, one of the league's best and most popular players, now faces a sexual assault charge in Colorado. But while this charge is sure to diminish fan support for the talented 24-year-old and could even cost the Los Angeles Lakers the services of a key player, it's not going to be a significant or even measurable economic blow to the league.

The Lakers aren't a one-trick pony, like the Washington Wizards, who will see their attendance and television viewership plunge now that their drawing card -- Michael Jordan -- has once again hung up his Nikes.

Even if the Lakers stumble, fan interest in the team won't evaporate. The lowly Los Angeles Clippers, who share their Staples Center home, sell out about 90 percent of their tickets. Even if the only court Bryant sees this year has a judge and jury, the Lakers will see fewer empty seats than his courtroom.

But the dearth of both talent and fan interest in the New York Knicks, one of the league's premier teams based in the largest media market, is symbolic of a far more serious business problem for the NBA -- there isn't much to watch in the league most nights until about 10 p.m. ET.

The best teams, and the most interesting players and match-ups, are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Western conference.

"Because of the clock, the three-quarters of us who live in eastern and central time zone don't get to see those clubs as much, don't get to see the highlights on Sports Center," said Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing expert. "For a nightly league that is largely dependent on national television revenue, that's a big issue."

Kobe Bryant's legal problems will cost him money, but won't dent league revenue.

The Knicks saw their string of home sellouts end during the past season and their local television ratings plunged to an average of 1.2 from 1.9 a year ago on the cable network owned by team owner Cablevision Systems (CVC: Research, Estimates). They missed the playoffs for the second straight year. This week they traded their arguably best player, Latrell Sprewell.

The New York market also contains the Eastern Conference champs of the last two years, but the New Jersey Nets have never been able to capture the fan interest of even a bad Knicks team at home or nationwide. While the Nets saw attendance climb 10 percent this year, they sold only 75 percent of their regular season tickets and couldn't even sell out all their home playoff games.

National ratings for the finals between the Nets and small-market San Antonio Spurs were abysmal -- only 6.5 percent of homes tuned into the games on average, down from 10.2 percent the previous year.

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League-wide attendance slipped only 0.5 percent. But further attendance declines are possible if not likely this year courtesy of Jordan's absence from the Wizards' games.

The Wizards could easily see more than a 300,000 to 400,000 drop in combined home and road attendance with the most popular player now in his third retirement. That could represent about 2 percent of the total league attendance last year.

NBA spokesman Mike Bass insists the league's business outlook is a good one, as he points to the strong rookie class and a 50-percent rise in merchandise sales during the past season to an estimated $2.2 billion. He also says cable ratings did increase in the season.

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The league saw a regular season average 1.2 rating on Turner and 1.3 rating on ESPN, compared with a 1.1 on Turner in 2001-02. But regular season games shown on ABC saw their average rating fall to 2.6 from 2.9 on NBC the previous season.

Perhaps the best thing going for the league's economics is that it has about four more years before a new TV contract is negotiated -- the league just finished the first year of a six-year TV pacts with Walt Disney Co.'s (DIS: Research, Estimates) ABC and ESPN networks, as well as Turner. The deals are worth a combined $766 million annually, up about 25 percent from previous agreements.

The league has time to rebound from its current woes before it goes hunting for more television dollars. But if the talent keeps going west, the revenues will start heading south.