SASHA "THE MACHINE" IS BACK

It's been awhile since I've talked about my old friend and favorite Lakers player, Sasha Vujacic, but then I came across this hilarious video about him via the thelakersnation.com and it brought back all of my memories of pre-game locker room convos, discussions of headbands and Sasha songs.

Although I am no longer in Los Angeles covering my beloved Lakers, I highly recommend going to my favorite Lakers Insider, Beto Duran's Lakers Blog here. He also appreciates the amazingness that is Sasha Vujacic.

You might have heard me talk about my buddy Sasha here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here ... you get the point. Anyways, this video is hilarious.

COULD SASHA COME TO NEW YORK?!

Sash Vujacic and Ronnie Turiaf are looking around the league to get a feel for their worth.

Sasha - please, oh please, come to New York!

Knicks - please, oh please, make an offer!

On Monday the Lakers made one-year offers to Sasha and Ronny, but they can match what any other team offers the guys. Sasha's offer was for $2.6 million and Ronny's for $1 mil. Not too shabby considering Sasha made $1,700,00 in the last season and Ronny made $770,000.

I would be the happiest person ever to see Sasha in NYC. What a fabulous familiar face. The chances of this happening are probably slim to none, but it doesn't hurt to hope. Sasha seems happy hanging beachside in Manhattan (the Cali one). However, the Lakers have started looking into Brent Barry and James Posey, should the guys decide to go with another team.

Not sure if the Knicks are really in need of a Sasha-y character anyways, but perhaps his spunk would be a breathe of fresh air for the rigidly uptight New Yorkers. There's no denying my affection for that enthusiasm, energy, dedication and of course, the hair. Oh, the hair. Not exactly New Yorkish hair, but he'd definitely fit in better than say, uh Luke Walton.

THE SASHA SONGS

I realized today that I was never able to post the Sasha Vujacic makeup song for you all to listen to. It's amazing. Basically, ESPN 710 radio's Dave Dameshek show wrote a song about Sasha, he didn't like it. I wrote about how he didn't like it. It became a huge on-going joke and the radio show wrote two songs to makeup for it. This is because the Dameshek crew is amazing.

In this tribute, I even get a shout out! It's Sasha's makeup song to Beautiful.

This is the second song, to Beat It. This is where Sasha becomes a verb. To make a nice 3-point shot is to Vujacic it, Vujacic it good.

WHAT YOU DIDN'T SEE

Here’s some notes and fun behind-the-scenes fun from Game 2 that you might not have seen on TV:

-Max Lucado’s “For the Moment” daily bible in Ime Udoku’s locker.

-Derek Fisher shooting 20 for 25 in practice before the game, hoping to break his 3-point jinx.

-Tim Duncan watching film from Game 1 in the quite Spurs locker room and scheming about layups with Tim Thomas.


-Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing the National Anthem with a trumpet while free stylin’ at certain parts in the song. Flea and Anthony Kiedis wrote two songs about the Lakers on their 1989 album Mother's Milk, called "Salute To Kareem" and the "Magic Johnson" which features these lyrics:

Lakers are the team that I watch on the telly
Cause they got more moves
Than a bowl full of jelly

Flea also used to blog about the Lakers. Even though the announcer says, “Please remove your hats,” he's still sporting a yellow Lakers hat during the song. Fans don’t seem to mind at all. They’re loving his rocker-trumpet version of the epic tune. Afterwards he jumps up about 5 feet in the air and then runs over to the Lakers players and high five’s them all.

-There’s a sign in the crowd that says “Kobe Diem.” While it’s no secret that Kobe is a big fan of Latin, having spent much of his childhood in Italy, perhaps this is because his favorite saying is, “Carpe Diem, Carpe Diem, Carpe Diem.” I know this, because we talked about it after a game.

-The regulars are here, of course: David and Posh, Tobe Maguire, Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson.

-Ronny Turiaf yelling at the top of his lungs, dancing and singing "Sashaaaaa Vucacic, Sasha Vujacic!" after Sasha scores.


-After the game a hundred or so fans stick around to watch Kobe do a TNT post-game show with Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and a couple TNT guys. There are a ton of fans snapping pics, screaming “Kobe, Kobe, Kobe!” and “MVP, MVP, MVP!”

-For the first time in a while Trevor Ariza is surrounded by five reporters. Earlier before the game a reporter had asked Phil Jackson if Trevor would play or not. They’ve been asking all season and then sure enough, he played!

THE SASHA FACTOR

I can’t say it enough how Sasha is one of my favorites. We have the best pre-game convos ever. He always says hi to me and chats. He's also happens to be an incredible player. Here's another fun Sasha pre-game convo:

ME: What do you do before the game to get mentally prepared?

SASHA: Pick out socks. (He says as he folds some in his lap)

ME: Which ones are good to wear?

SASHA: It doesn’t matter, they’ve just got to match.

ME: You just need to get all the same socks so they always match.

SASHA: Yeah, but it’s the washing. They become grey after awhile. Seriously, I’m not kidding.

ME: Is Pau your best friend?

SASHA: I don’t know. Ask him. You never know what he’s going to say. He’s Calderon.

ME: Are you excited to go to San Antonio?

SASHA: Yeah, are you? Are you coming?

ME: No, they don’t send me.

SASHA: You’re going to party in OC, right?

ME: Uh, huh.

SASHA AND I ARE COOLIO, MANU AND I ARE TOO

The first Western Conference Finals game was yesterday and my boss at E! was getting ready to go to NY for the Sex In The City premiere (eh hem, jealous) so it was a busy day. But a fabulous one, nevertheless.

Not only did the Lakers come back from a 20-point deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs - the biggest deficit in the playoffs since 2002 - but I chatted with Sasha Vujacic. As he was combing back his long locks, he says:

"Hey you! How you been? Good? Everything okay?"

If was a lot of questions at once, by yes, I am proud to say we've reached "Hey you" status. (Either that or he forgot my name, but he calls me "OC" anyways).

SIDE NOTE: I've heard the Diglio make-up songs for Sasha - yes songs - there's two of them and words can not describe the amazingness of these tunes. The Dameshek Show on 710 ESPN has had just as much fun as I have making this Sasha song crisis an on-going joke. It's amazing.

(EDITORS UPDATE: Here's one of the new Sasha songs!)

I totally lucked out yesterday and caught Manu Giniobili walking down the hall to the bus by himself while he was munching on pizza. Manu was more than happy to chat about the game, being stuck on the tarmac and tell me he is reading an Argentinian history book right now. Fascinating stuff.

Okay, so now on to my Sasha chat:

ME: I won't bug you about the song.

SASHA: Don't worry about it! I like the song.

ME: Yeah, right.

SASHA: Don't ask me about the song.

ME: Ha, I won't. Okay, so do you think it was more that they ran out of gas in the 3rd quarter or you guys stepped things up?

SASHA: I think we stepped up and I think we stayed within the game plan. We knew what we were supposed to do, which was good.

ME: They'll have a bit more sleep come Friday, are you worried at all they'll have even more energy?

SASHA: We're never scared. We are never worried about what's going to happen. We want to come in and protect our - Sorry I am doing this -

(he says as he brushes his hair while looking in the full-length locker room mirror)

SASHA: So its going to be like, you know, we've got to protect our home court. There's a reason we play two games and it's great.

ME: You sealed the game at the end with those two free throws.

SASHA: Yeah, it wasn't me; it was the whole team, the way we played and I just got an opportunity to make those two free throws and that's what I love. My teammates were there for 48 minutes and we just played great.

WELCOME TO THE CITY

I landed in Chicago tonight, (correction: technically it's the morning) Chi-town as I like to say. It's home to the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Bears; four teams I grew up loving. Unfortunately I won't be seeing any of those teams while I'm here. Instead, the fam has planned to go to some museums and then tomorrow I'll head to a sports bar in the city to watch the Lakers game.

I have some very exciting news for all of you who have been losing sleep over the Sasha Vujacic song dilemma. Don't worry, he won't be sad for long. The amazing crew at the Dave Dameshek show will be creating a new song about Sasha's awesomeness after all and I will be sure to let you all know when this world premiere will be taking place! If I had something to offer, I would start a contest for the best Sasha Vujacic music video when this song comes out, but I really don't know what you could win ... I'll start brainstorming.

I would like to give a huge thanks to the guys for having me on their radio show yesterday. It's on 710 ESPN weekdays 4- 7pm. You should listen. It's good stuff. You can listen live online too. The whole crew is awesome. The show is awesome. The songs are awesome. It's just brings you to a happy place ...


Perhaps, I'll email him right now and tell him he has a new, positive and celebratory song to look forward to. Then when I'm sitting at a bar in Chicago and Sasha is busy scoring 3's, rallying the crowd and having his best game in the post-season, I'll secretly know the reason why. He'll have made amends.

Last week, Chi-town native Dodgers player Gary Bennett gave me a whole list of good spots to go to while I'm here and now I can't remember any of them. So I'm looking on citysearch for cool sports bars to watch the game.

When I type in "bars" and "Chicago" there are three sponsored links at the top and one of them is for a product called "Prehab" which is supposedly supposed to prevent hangovers. For the sake of this blog, I clicked on the ad. Their slogan is "Because hangovers suck." Honestly, who comes up with this stuff?!?

REPORTING FROM... LAKERS VS. JAZZ GAME FIVE

There's one thing wrong with Staples Center that Utah Jazz player Kyrylo Fesenko has noticed.

"You don't have mascot!" Actually Fesenko, L.A. has many mascots - and they're called celebrities.

Returning home to Tinsel Town for Game 5 after two road losses in Salt Lake, couldn't have been brighter for the Lakers who were warmly welcomed by plenty of familiar famous faces at Staples Center.

Wednesday's game included Tobey Maguire, Denzel Washington, David Beckham, David Arquette, Harvey Weinstein, Jack Nicholson, Heather Locklear, Jack Wagner, Lou Adler, Jon Favreau, Brian Grazer, Chris Tucker, Andy Garcia and Dyan Cannon.

And the star-struck Jazz took notice.

"When I saw Denzel Washington that was pretty cool because I'm a big fan," Ronnie Price says. "I watch all of his movies and seeing him at the basketball game was kind of crazy."

While the Jazz may have been focused on the game, it can be hard for even the un-fazed not to stare. "I know just without even trying you can spot celebrities," Price says. "I just notice that people look difference in person. Sometimes movies make people look different. They all are shorter in person."

Not that you can blame the Jazz.

You don't exactly see too many celebrities in Utah - unless of course, you count the High School Musical teen stars Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale that made a cameo appearance at Game 4 in Salt Lake.

The celebrity-effect is an unexplainable one. Even the Lakers admit that L.A. isn't the most hostile stadium in the league. "People are sitting down most of the game until something happens and you get cheered by them," Jordan Farmar says. "You go on the road and it's loud from beginning to end."

The Jazz agree. "You see more signs and more obnoxious things in other places," Matt Harping says.

But L.A. still remains one of the most difficult cities to play at.

Click here to read the rest of my article on ESPN.com!

SASHA IS SAD

Poor Sasha Vujacic. He is my favorite player on the team and his feelings are hurt. Sasha is that kid in middle school gym class who would stick around at the finish line to cheer on the lazy kids that would walk the mile - except he has long flowy hair and an accent. He's the nicest guy on the team, is always trying to boost everyone's moral, signals at the crowd to pump them up, checks on teammates when they're down ... and now he's down.

I sent Sasha his Lakers song and apparently he thinks the song is mean and not funny ... so Dameshek crew, what shall we think of this? Perhaps we could write him a happy song about his awesomeness? Or maybe just a montage of clips of him scoring? That would boost is feelings. Or would that not be fair to give him two songs? I mean technically speaking, Kobe got two songs if you count the Kobe's Finger song.

Anyways, I saw Sasha after the Lakers game Wed night and he brought up the song when he saw me:

SASHA: Hey! How are you?

ME: Good, how are you?

SASHA: That was a nasty song.

ME: What was nasty? Ohhh, the song I sent you.

SASHA: Yeah, I don’t like it. They were trying to be funny.

ME: It’s all in good fun, right?

SASHA: Ah, somethings they said is not very nice, right?

ME: Well no, but I don’t agree with all of them. I think it’s funny.

SASHA: It’s funny at some point and then it’s not very funny.

SOME OTHER DUDE: What song? A song about him? Send it to me!

SASHA: I don’t like it. You’re going to see that it’s not very good … It’s good, it’s good. I mean if they think like that –

ME: It was a joke.

SOME OTHER DUDE: What’s the mean part of it?

ME: I don’t know, they said they like his hair and –

SASHA: And that I was stealing money and stuff like that.

ME: Uh, I don’t remember that part.

SASHA: Listen to it carefully.

SOME OTHER DUDE: Is it on You-Tube?

ME: No.

SOME OTHER DUDE: It should be.

SASHA: No. It should not be.

PLAYOFFS, POKER, DODGERS PLAYERS, FASHION SHOWS. OH, JUST MY NORMAL DAY.

(Photo editor's note: Laura Lane, reporting. My friend Beto snapped this pic before the Lakers game and sent it me. Thanks Beto! Check out his 710 ESPN blog. It's pretty awesome.)

The last three days have been insane. I've been to the Lakes playoffs, chatted with Ron Artest, played blackjack with some Dodgers players at a casino, went to a poker tournament, interviewed Don Cheadle and Annie Duke, went to a fashion show, interviewed Kelly Preston, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jennifer Love Hewitt, had front row seats at the Tonight Show, met Jay Leno, ended up on stage for a contest ... and still had time to meet up with a bunch of my friends from college for drinks.

Wednesday was the Lakers playoff game where I chatted for a while with Ron Artest who remembered me from when I interviewed some of the Kings players a few weeks ago. "Hey, I've met you before already!" he said when I introduced myself and sat down next to him before the game to chat, thinking there was no way he would remember. "It’s fun to be at a Lakers game," Artest told me. "It’s like going to an amusement park or something, you know? You’ve got Kobe entertaining all of LA. What better place to watch a game than with Kobe Bryant?” I couldn't agree more.


I chatted with Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar and Lamar Odom for my article. My awesome editors later put the article in their round-up of "the best work" of the week. Sweeet. There's some really awesome articles from the other writers this week too you should check out.

Lamar Odom promised me he'd make me one of his crazy suits he's been wearing to all the games. No joke.

ME: "Do you have another crazy suit today?"

ODOM: “Naw, I kept it cool, calm and collected for today.”

ME: “Nice. I think the next suit should be gold."

ODOM: “Gold, huh?”

ME: “Gold with silver lining.”

ODOM: “Next time we’re here I’ll give you a funky suit."

(later after the game)

ME: “So when are you going to make me a suit?”

ODOM: "Anytime you want.”

I'll believe it when I see it.

Thursday I went to the Annie Duke and Don Cheadle Celebrity Charity Poker Tournament. Interviewed both of them. Annie is awesome and told me all these stories about how Matt Damon would call her up and have her come play poker on the set of Ocean's 13. Perhaps I should start working on my poker skills so I'll get called up to hang with Clooney, Damon and Pitt to play a game. Cheadle was cool and I think it's great that he does charity but he's a tad cocky.


Also in the tournament were three Dodgers players, James Loney, Gary Bennet and Scott Proctor. After interviewing them all, I went with Bennet and Proctor to the bar to get a drink where we sat and chatted about sports, family, Chicago, people watching and how dive bars are way better than clubs in L.A. Then veteran Red Sox shortstop and 2007 World Series champion Royce Clayton came over to chat with the guys and they got into a deep baseball convo - a convo that they wouldn't want reported on. They talked about Joe Torre, behind the scenes clubhouse stuff and a movie Clayton is producing with some huge names. I think it will be an Oscar-contender. I'm keeping the convo to myself, but let's just say that it was a completely surreal moment. Those guys are smart, totally laid-back and ridiculously nice.

Then, Proctor, Bennet and I went to hit up the blackjack tables. I was a bit afraid when I agreed to hit up the tables with them because there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to be at the high roller tables throwing down $500 a hand - so we hit up the $10 min tables. All of three of us were on a roll at the beginning and I was up about $150 ... and then after an hour or so we hit a bad streak. The guys decided we should all call it a night before any of us lost anymore money so I walked away just $100 down. Totally worth every penny getting to hang with those dudes. Some of the nicest guys I've met. They all had the luxury of having drivers to drive them an hour and a half home to L.A. from the casino but I had to drive myself and considering I only got two hours of sleep the night before working on a story, I was tired as hell driving home. Didn't get much sleep that night either since I had to wake up early the next morning ...


On Friday I went to a luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Champagne in the morning, a fashion show, a delicious meal and all for a very worthy cause - the Step Up Women's Network. I interviewed Jamie Lee Curtis - who I want to adopt as my aunt or something because she is the nicest, most intelligent and 'real' celeb I've met in awhile. "There’s a nice quote that talks about how no one becomes enlightened overnight," Curtis said to me. "Enlightened or self-knowledge or any change happens in fragments in a laborious mosaic. So if you think about a human’s life like a mosaic that’s why old people are smart. That’s why old people are wise because the mosaic is filled in. They see the way to go. But I certainly didn’t pick this up in my 20's." Guess I've got a long way to go on my search for self-knowledge.


I also chatted with Kelly Preston, who is drop-dead gorgeous. I better look that hot when I'm old. I asked her what her perfect date is with John Travolta. "If it’s just a date for the two of us, we'll sneak away for dinner and movie or dinner and dancing," Preston said. "Its hard to find places to go dancing but we used to love to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center in New York. Anytime we’d be in New York we’d go there for dinner and dancing." Sounds just like my perfect date! I'm big on city views. My perfect date would be topped off with a comedy show or a ball game.


I snuck out of the luncheon after the fashion show to race over to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno ... we had front row seats, met Jay Leno and I ended up on stage in a contest. Read the post below this to hear about our amazing time.

After the show I ran over to a dive bar on Hollywood Blvd. to meet up with a few friends I graduated with from USC. One of the girls is a producer at CBS in Sacramento and was down for the weekend. My friends are total ballers. I couldn't be more proud or happy for them. We've only been graduated a year and one girl is a CBS producer, another guy works at Dateline NBC, my other friend works at TV Guide and is a weekend reporter at ABC in Bakersfield and another guy produces a movie show for Reelz Channel. So legit! I'm not doing too shabby either so we all had some pretty good stories to share over drinks. We're calling ourselves the Annenberg mafia. I swear these people are going to run TV networks and be the next Barbara Walters before I know it. We all ended up staying way later than we planned because we were having so much fun catching up. On Monday I'm going with one of the girls to the season finale taping of The Hills. Awesome. I'm sure it will be another adventure.

REPORTING FROM THE LAKERS PLAYOFFS

There's a crisis in the Lakers locker room. "What have they done to the back of my shoes?" asks Sasha Vujacic examining a pair of black rubber sandals as he sits in front of his locker. He hesitates before smelling them. "Hey!" Vujacic says to a trainer. "These are messed up. Somebody did something."

"I sprayed some stuff on them," the trainer explains. "It's disinfectant. I do that every now and then."

Vujacic's phone starts to ring.

"Who's calling me?" he says smiling as he picks up his I-Phone. "Don't people know I have a game?"

There's just more than an hour until the Lakers take on the Utah Jazz in Game 2, but the Lakers don't seem a bit worried.

As Sasha figures out his shoe crisis, Lamar Odom munches on popcorn and pounds fists with reporters. The last few games he's caused attention in the locker room with his fashionable garments—brightly colored custom-made suits, including a bright yellow suit with purple trim. He's got about eight different ones, but today he opted for a classic suit. "I kept it cool, calm and collected for today," he explains. "Next time we're here I'll give you a funky suit," he promises.

Read on for more of my reporting from the Lakers Game!

LUKE STILL HAS LOVE

I can now breathe a sigh of relief. I didn't offend Luke Walton after all. A few days ago (three posts before this to be exact) I emailed Luke a song Dick Banks did about him on ESPN radio. I hadn't heard back so I got nervous. I thought I offended Luke Walton. After countless sleepless nights (okay, perhaps this is a slight exaggeration) I can rest easy. I saw Luke in the Lakers locker room after the playoff game last night (the Lakers killlllled it, sliding past the Utah Jazz 120-110) and I got to the bottom of it.

ME: Luke I have to ask you, did you hear the song?

LUKE: No, I only got it on my phone and then my Apple doesn’t play it! It came up as funky little signs. (He sounds genuinely disappointed and holds up his I-Phone for proof)

ME: Oh, well it’s really good.

LUKE: Is it funny?

ME: It’s hilarious. It talks about you wearing hippie shirts.

Damn, my stupid new computer. It's been attaching all my files weird and I thought it was only doing it with word documents. How is it that no one told me this has been happening for the last month?!

(EDITORS UPDATE: YOU CAN HEAR LUKE'S SONG NOW!)

THE GENIUS LAKERS SONGS

OH. MY. GOD. I don't think I could have laughed harder in my life when I first heard the Chris Mihm Lakers song on Dave Dameshek's radio show on ESPN. And there's more where it came from! You HAVE to, just HAVE to check out these songs. It's the most amazing thing I've heard in a long time. It gave me many laughs. If I had the patience I would type up the lyrics but that would just take way too much time. You must listen to these:

Sasha Vujacic's Song

Kobe's Finger Song

Pau Gasol's Song

For all the songs click here for the Fighting Dick Banks Marching Band tunes.

8 REASONS WHY LAKERS GAMES ARE THE BEST IN THE WEST

1. Eva Longoria just walked by in a skin-tight mini dress with a crew of gal pals. She's here supporting her Spurs hubby Tony Parker … She also just passed by a giant courtside advertisement for Desperate Housewives. Coincidence? I think not.

2. Luke Walton just scored a sweet shot and the crowd is screaming, “Luuuuuuuuuuuke!” If you weren’t a regular, you might mistake the chant for “Boooooooooo!” Not all is positive for Luke, though. “Tuck in your shirt Luke!” screams a fan behind me. Seriously, that boy’s jersey is always hanging out. What’s the deal?

3. There’s some teenagers with “I Love Sasha” shirts on. I can’t help but smile because Sasha Vujacic is one of my favs. He’s sportin’ his signature thin black head band today holding back his dark wavy locks. He switched up an earlier-season thick head band for this skinnier one a few weeks ago. I like to notice the important details, folks.

4. There’s a 40 + year-old fan on the jumbo-tron in a Lakers jersey dancing … he also has a giant Lakers clock hanging from a chain around his neck. Full-on Flava Flav style.



5. Pau Gasol dunks and Sasha practically crowd surfs on top of his teammates. Kobe has the hugest smile on his face and motions with his hands to keep it going. Where’s the ‘POW!’ graphic on the jumbo-tron? … Ah, there it is.

6. The annual “Lakers Report Card” graphic isn’t for Kobe Bryant? What?!?! I didn’t even know they could change the graphic! Congrats, Lamar Odom. Kobe’s resting his hurt pinky finger on the bench so the A+ this game goes to Odom.

7. Jack Nicholson is slouched comfortably in his regular courtside seat. Suit? Check. Glasses? Check. Arms crossed? Check. Screams at ref? And check.

8. Sasha is leaving the game and comes to say goodbye to Spike Lee before he goes. “Keep hitting those shots man,” Lee instructs. “Only against New York,” Vujacic responds smiling. “Only against the Knicks!” (You’ll only get this joke if you realize how big of a NY Knicks fan Spike Lee is. He’s wore a NY hat to a Lakers game).