Luke Walton goofing on Sasha!

Ross Siler, formerly of the LA Daily News, is now writing for the Salt Lake Tribune, and he re-counted this funny Luke Walton-Sasha Vujacic story on his blog today.

Either last season or the season before, Luke Walton was signing autographs outside the Lakers hotel in Indianapolis. One of the kids had a binder of basketball cards and was flipping through it when Walton hit the mother lode. He saw a rookie card for Vujacic that can only be described as a basketball glamour shot.

Not only did he sign everything he could for that kid outside the hotel, Walton bought the Vujacic card off him. Then he had a member of the Lakers public relations staff photocopy it about 10,000 times. They were destined to be hung all over the banquet room where the Lakers were going to watch the Super Bowl on the road.

I never heard about Vujacic's reaction, but I'm guessing it was embarrassment. In his fourth year with the Lakers, Vujacic has shed the label Phil Jackson once gave him as an "11 o'clock shooter" (great in practice, bad in games) and has become a dependable reserve on one of the NBA's deepest teams.

I'm pretty sure that the above photo is the one that was photocopied 10,000 times.

Comments

[Doug]

I think this is a better rookie card picture.
http://www.joessports.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2122153

[Jesse10]

First off I would just like to say that this whole NBA playoff is getting pathetic. I was never a big believer of the whole conspiracy theory of refs fixing games or the commissioner wanting to restore a Boston vs LA final, but it’s starting to look that way. I’m from Los Angeles and I’m not this laker hater I’m just a basketball fan and love to see great basketball. And my problem is when referees have ultimately the final say in whose going to win the game. Like last night when Kobe bluntly pushed off Bowen to give him enough separation to make the go-ahead basket, or when Duncan got the rebound and Lamar hits it out of his hands and the replay clearly showed Duncan didn’t touch the ball (and with the ref was right there) and it’s Laker’s ball (what a joke) , not to mention Ginobli being fouled before Sasha got the final two free throws. And now it’s just sad I came to work today and I’m the head basketball coach of the school I teach at and you wouldn’t believe all of my colleagues coming up to me expressing their disgust in the officiating at the end of the game, so many people were saying I’m not even going to watch anymore. And don’t forget were in Los Angeles not San Antonio (and these people are saying this), so you can’t say were biased like most of the hosts of all the LA sports talk shows. Like last night I heard some guys on another LA sports station saying they knew the Lakers were going to win all along – Yeah Right how can you even say that when they were down by 20 (if last nights game was in San Antonio the Lakers wouldn’t even have had a chance, they would’ve lost by 15 points minimum) and that’s clearly my point – why is that? The lakers - I guarantee would not have got all those calls and made that run in San Antonio. So get over yourself, the Lakers are overrated I wish these guys would analyze the game not their favorite team. San Antonio is clearly the more mature, complete, and deserving team to win this series. And it’s unfortunate that just because a San Antonio vs Boston or San Antonio vs Detroit final doesn’t sound as appealing as LA - is really upsetting for a true basketball fan. Teams like San Antonio and Detroit are REAL TEAMS, they aren’t solely dependant on one or two players to win them a championship they are complete and play fundamental basketball - this is why they have won recent championships. People don’t understand that basketball is a team sport and this is the way it was meant to be played. 5 players on the court playing team defense and all five starters averaging double digits and the bench putting in an uplifting contribution. But it’s not appealing, too bad. When was the last time one star player won a championship, I can’t even remember – Michael Jordan was the closest (but people will argue he had Pippen) Iverson couldn’t do it when he got to the finals, LeBron couldn’t do it, and Kobe definitely couldn’t do it by himself – he couldn’t even get out of the first round. And when the Shaq era of the Lakers ended they got beat by a TEAM in the Detroit Pistons, and last year the Spurs destroyed LeBron because they are a TEAM. So I feel confident that the great team of the San Antonio Spurs will prevail in this series, if a higher power doesn’t overthrow them (like the refs or commissioner), because the Lakers just don’t have what it takes to compete with a real team. They can’t get all the calls forever, or can they! I’m out like Andrew Bynum for the season.