Sources said Lakers are trying to trade Sasha Vujacic wfirst round pick to get his salary off books. They tried to do it for Delonte West.
IMO, Vujacic is hands down the most annoying player in the league. If I were running a team, the Lakers would have to include Pau Gasol or his girlfriend, Maria Sharapova, in the deal to get me to take on his contract/personality.
After a reasonably decent 2007-08 — 8.8 ppg, 44% 3PT — Sasha averaged 2.8 ppg and 31% from 3PT last season. The only productive thing he did all year was get under Goran Dragic’s skin in the Suns series, and even that almost backfired.
Obligatory pics (of Maria) after the jump, of course.
The Suns were on life support, down 17 in the fourth quarter, when Dragic came into the game, hit a jumper and started to talk some sh*t to Vujacic, who has some problems with Dragic over the fact that he (Vujacic) was dismissed from the Slovenian national team. Vujacic lost his cool and elbowed Dragic in the face, and it turned into a six-point play. Suns down 11 with 11:11 to play.
Kobe on the squabble:
Still, Bryant, who led the Lakers with 37 points, did not take kindly to Vujacic’s flagrant foul playing a role in Phoenix’s rally. In an interview with TNT immediately after the game, Bryant said he wanted to “kill” Vujacic after what he did and still wanted to “kill him” even though the Lakers won.
So what did Dragic say? Vujacic, who we all know is not to be trusted, said the following:
The Lakers may have won, 111-103, thanks to some incredibly clutch shots from Kobe Bryant (37-6-2) in the fourth quarter, but the rivalry between fellow Slovenians Goran Dragic and Sasha Vujacic (sort of) stole the show. The Suns were on life support, down 17 in the fourth quarter, when Dragic came into the game, hit a jumper and started to talk some sh*t to Vujacic, who has some problems with Dragic over the fact that he (Vujacic) was dismissed from the Slovenian national team. Vujacic lost his cool and elbowed Dragic in the face, and it turned into a six-point play. Suns down 11 with 11:11 to play.
The Suns eventually cut it to three with 2:18 to play, but Kobe hit two impossible shots, a 23-footer with 1:59 to play (and two guys in his face) to push the lead to five and a very contested 21-footer with 0:35 to play to push the lead to seven. Game over.
So we have a rematch of the 2008 Finals — Lakers vs. Celtics. There is plenty on the line for both teams, but I expect Kobe and the Lakers will come out very motivated to avenge the Finals loss two years ago.
On a side note, no one can question what Ron Artest has brought to the table in this series. After his timely game-winning put back in Game 5 and his 10-for-16, 25-point, three-steal effort in Game 6, I doubt there are too many Laker fans wishing that Trevor Ariza was still on the team.
Be sure to check back on Monday for my writeups about where the Suns (and Magic) go from here.
Like most NBA fans (outside the greater Houston area), once the news broke that Yao Ming was going to miss the rest of the playoffs with a foot injury, I wrote off the Rockets. How could they possibly keep pace with one of the top two teams in the league without their best player?
Since the injury, the Rockets have taken two of three from the Lakers, and if Kobe and Co. were truly championship worthy, they would have gone on the road and won Game 4 or Game 6. Laker apologists will probably just say that their team will still win in Game 7 and they’ll go on to win the championship, but really, they shouldn’t be in this position in the first place. Anything can happen in a single game, and sometimes, no matter what you do, it’s just not your night. What if the Rockets collectively catch fire like they did in Game 4? What if Kobe has one of his 5-for-20 days? Or what if Pau Gasol goes down with an injury that knocks him out of the game?
By letting the Rockets get back into the series, the Lakers have no margin for error. That’s the whole point of a seven-game series — it’s designed so that poor luck and bad nights don’t send a true champion home early.
The economy is really starting to take its toll on professional sports, and the NBA is no different. Bad contracts are bad even when the economy is pumping, but they really stand out in tough times like these. So I decided to look through the payrolls team-by-team to try to identify the worst contracts in the NBA. I expected to list 15-20 names, but I ended up scribbling down 68. That’s right, there are no fewer than 68 bad contracts in the NBA.
I didn’t include any of the players that are in the final year of their contracts because…well, what’s the point? They’ll be off the books in a few months anyway. Instead, I wanted to focus on those contracts that are going to haunt teams for years to come, so to be eligible, players have to have at least a year left on their current deals.
It’s tough to compare someone making superstar money to an average, everyday role player, so I split these 68 contracts up into three groups: the Overpaid Role Players, the Not-So-Super Stars and the Injury-Prones. I will rank them from least-worst to most-worst with the thinking that I wouldn’t trade the player for anyone further down the list but I would trade him for anyone previously mentioned. So, for example, if a guy is listed #7 within a particular group, I’m not trading him for anyone ranked #6-#1, but I would think seriously about moving him for a guy that is ranked #8+.
So let’s start with the role players and go from there…
(Note: In most cases, I don’t blame the player himself for his outrageous contract. The fault lies with the general manager that inked the guy to the deal. However, this rule goes out the window if the player has a history of only producing in his contract year – I’m looking at you, Tim Thomas.)
