Why the Lakers are stuck with Sasha Vujacic for next year

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Before Shannon Brown was re signed to a two year deal, there were talks about how the Lakers and Brown were close to a deal but that it was dependent on whether or not Sasha Vujacic could be traded so they could use that $5.4 million and give it to Brown. Well, fast forward to a couple days ago and the Lakers went ahead and signed Brown anyway to the tune of $2.2 million this year and a player option for next year at $2.4 million (Brown has the choice to become an unrestricted free agent next summer and re enter the market).

Now the Lakers are supposedly trying to trade Sasha and his horrible horrible contract because they are well over the luxury tax threshold and Jerry Buss, while he loves winning championships, would like to do so at a "reasonable" price.

Well too bad. You are stuck with Sasha Vujacic. Here's why

Like I said, the Lakers are well over the Luxury tax limit. They're on tap for around $94 million and they just signed their two 2nd round draft picks which will probably be around another $1 million. Now they need to shed money and the likely candidates are Sasha Vujacic and Luke Walton. These two players have already become the Adam Morrison and Sun Yue of the 2010-2011 season and the season hasn't even started.

But contract-ually speaking, Sasha is more moveable than Luke. Sasha is in the last year of his contract (due $5.4 million) while Luke has three more seasons at $5.2 mil, $5.6 mil, and $6.1 mil respectively. Add to that Luke's bad back problems he had last season, he's just not a sought after player as of right now. I mean, who would want a player who costs a lot who's going to be injured.

So Sasha Vujacic is on the trading block.

(Photo from Hoopedia)
Let me bring you back to the summer of 2008. The Denver Nuggets had two high priced players in Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony, along with a high priced Kenyon Martin and a $10 million dollar Marcus Camby. Nuggets didn't want to pay all of that and they needed to do a salary dump. So the Clippers came along and sent a 2nd round draft pick for the former defensive player of the year, always up there in the league leaders in defensive rebounds and blocked shots. A rip off trade, no? Well of course it is, but it was a salary dump. The Clippers had money to spend, and the Nuggets were spending too much.

Had the Clippers traded another $10 million dollar player for Marcus Camby, well there wouldn't be a point to that, would there? The Nuggets would still be spending a lot of money, and the Clippers would still have money to spend and another lost roster spot. OK back to Sasha. THIS MARCUS CAMBY DEAL IS WHAT THE LAKERS ARE TRYING TO DO RIGHT NOW. They want a future 2nd round draft pick (because 2nd round picks are not guaranteed contracts. They do not want a player of equal contract value because they are trying to get RID OF CONTRACTS. So for a team to take on Sasha, they would need to send a 2nd round draft pick, and a 2nd round draft pick ONLY.

OK, so why are the Lakers stuck with Sasha? Because Sasha, unlike Marcus Camby, isn't a defensive player of the year, doesn't put up great defensive rebound numbers or blocked shots... quite simply put, no one wants him. There isn't a team out there saying to themselves, "Man, we are so close to being a championship contender, all we need is... SASHA VUJACIC!" and no team is saying, "Man, we need to rebuild this roster, first things first, GET ME SASHA VUJACIC!"

But he's an expiring contract! Everyone wants an expiring contract! True. Expiring contracts are a great way to rebuild a team for the future and/or clear cap space for a big free agent during that year's summer. But here's the thing with expiring contracts: a team wants to get rid of a guy making the same amount of money during this year, but who also happens to be making more money in later years.

So let's take a random player from a random team making around the same $5.5 million Sasha's making, but is NOT in the last year of his contract: Mike Bibby from the Atlanta Hawks. Mike Bibby is scheduled to make $5.5 million this year and $6.2 million next year. If the Hawks wanted to clear cap space because they don't want to pay the $6.2 million to Bibby next year, they would do this trade. They'd get Sasha and the Lakers would get Bibby. The Hawks would pay Sasha's $5.5 million this year, and then he'd be a free agent. The Lakers would pay Bibby the $5.5 million this year, AND the $6.2 million next year that the Hawks didn't want to pay.

But don't you see... that's exactly what the Lakers don't want. They don't want to take on more contracts regardless of who it is because they are already over the luxury tax threshold.

In plain English: they want someone to take Sasha Vujacic for free, but no one wants Sasha Vujacic.

Therefore, the Lakers are stuck with Sasha Vujacic.

I don't get the hype that Sasha Vujacic gets, I just don't

Do you really need to stretch to play a minute and 23 seconds?

(Photo from Yahoo)
I forked over a pretty penny to get some section 300 seats for Game 1 of the Phoenix Suns-LA Lakers series. Besides the usual hype everyone heard regarding the 2006 and 2007 series where Phoenix took out the Lakers and how this is "payback" even though the Lakers have since won a championship (gotta get hype somehow), there was a little more than "regular news" that Sasha Vujacic would return from an ankle sprain to play in his first playoff game of the year.

Now, I've chastised Sasha before on this blog. I've been chastising him since his rookie year, stopped for a season in 07-08, then went back to it after he signed a big contract and fell off. My question, AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES THIS!?

When Sasha checked in for the first time with 6:30 left in the 2nd quarter, he received a huge ovation. Not as big as the Shannon almost dunk ovation, or the skip pass from Lamar to a Kobe dunk ovation, but it's safe to say the entire crowd was clapping and/or screaming praise. I looked over to my friend and genuinely asked, "Why are people cheering?" The Lakers scored on a Lamar layup from Farmar. At the 5:58 mark, Lamar fouled, stopping play, and Sasha was replaced by Ron Artest (about 30 seconds of playing time).

I guess Phil saw a matchup he didn't like, I believe he was guarding Grant Hill at the time. But he gave him another chance: with 46 seconds left in the 2nd quarter, Sasha replaces DJ Mbenga to finish the half. Amare makes a shot with 24 seconds left, just barely giving them a 2 for 1 opportunity. Kobe breaks Grant Hill's ankle (OK, he slipped), misses the shot, and Josh Powell gets the offensive rebound and dunks it:



Now at the end of that play, you see the Suns are off to a fast break with 4 seconds left. What you DON'T see is Grant Hill raise up for a 3 pointer with .6 seconds left and Sasha fouls him!!!!! He does his routine "grab-my-hair-in-despair-and-close-my-eyes" move as Hill makes 2 of 3 free throws.

I'm guessing Phil Jackson wasn't too happy about that: With 3.6 seconds left in the 14 point lead 3rd quarter, Sasha enters for Fisher (presumably to take a foul, because the Lakers had a foul to give, which Farmar eventually took). And that's the last we've seen of Vujacic! When the Lakers were up 21 points with about 3 minutes left in the game, the garbage time went to DJ Mbenga, Walton, Powell, Farmar, and Shannon. Farmar and Shannon who get quality minutes for Fisher and Kobe! Sasha, I believe you are in the dog house.

Yesterday's game 2 featured absolutely no Sasha even though radio announcers Mychal Thompson and Spero Dedes (Local Laker broadcasters) were mentioning before the game that Sasha was available, which could prove useful! HONESTLY, am I the only one not buying into the Sasha bandwagon!?

I predict less than 5 minutes for Sasha in game 3 at Phoenix on Sunday. Let's see what happens.

Sasha Vujacic: OOHHHHHHH!!! Now I get it!

Hey remember when the Lakers were about to play the Boston Celtics in the 2008 Celtics? Of course you do. Laker haters always bring it up, and Laker fans always say that Andrew Bynum and Ariza were hurt. Well... whatever. Would you believe that Sasha had a vital role in getting the Lakers to the Finals that year? He did. Take a look -

He averaged 9 pts on 45% shooting (44% from 3 hitting 1.6 3s a game) all in 18 minutes a game in the 07-08 season. During the playoffs, he did about the same averaging 8 points in 21 minutes on about 40% shooting (He even earned himself an above average nickname: The Machine). Highlighted by his 20 point game in LA's first win against Boston in game 3 where he was the only Laker not named Kobe to score in double figures. Lowlighted by his horrid, atrocious defense against Ray Allen in game 4 (Lakers down 3, after giving up a crazy lead... ugh, just watch).



Side note - do not place the blame on Pau Gasol at all. Anyone who plays high school, college, semi pro, pro, YMCA, and/or playground basketball can tell that Sasha gave up on the play, let Ray go to his right, tried to take a wimpy swipe at the ball and got the best seat in the house for the game clinching layup. Even Paul Pierce looks like "Whoa! Yeah, Alright! That was easy!" at the :34 second mark.

Despite this terrible defensive stance, Vujacic cashed in on his numbers (a great indication of skill, right?) and signed a 3 year/$15 million deal that summer.

Still haven't worked on those defensive slides, eh?!

(Photo from Yahoo)

Fast forward to now:

"All season I haven't been getting much playing time," Vujacic said. "It's OK. Coach has his rotation. At least now I know what my role is. He said the reason we had the talk, he told me what my role is and now I understand what my role is. I was trying to find out all season long. But now I know."

What is that role?

"Well, I'm out of the rotation," Vujacic said. "If they are winning, I'm not playing. If they are losing and the team is down by 20 points, then I get few minutes."

Translation: Oooohhh!!! Now I get it! If I (1) keep playing hyperactive defense where it looks like I'm working hard to try and make up for my Finals embarrassment act in 08 (but instead I pick up cheap fouls and put my hands over my mouth so it looks like it's a missed call by the ref - 4.7 fouls per 36 minutes this season, wow!), (2) keep taking terrible shots that don't come within the offense when I'm trying to shoot my way back into playing time (41% FG, 33% 3PT, you have to watch the games though to see his bad decision shots), and (3) keep talking back to coaches who are trying to help me and the Lakers beat teams like the Thunder (when the incident occurred) and not atoning for it (hasn't played the last 3 games!), then I'll never get into the rotation and only play when we're down 20 points!

Sasha has turned into a disgruntled employee, except it's not like you and me where his boss can just fire him. He's getting $5 million this year and a little more than $5 million next year! Sasha needs to ask himself if he should swallow his pride and apologize to get his... 8 minutes a game back? That's up to him.

But maybe, Sasha's career has peaked. Started off hitting some rookie and sophomore walls, had his breakout season during a contract year, cashed in, leveled off and is on the tail end of his career? Maybe... All I know is that his defense has always been suspect. Too hyperactive, too swipe-y, too easily beaten by average and above average players (but if he's guarding Steve Novak, forget about it!). I find it ironic and amusing that his biggest flaw was on full display during game 4 of the finals in crunch time, and he still cashed in.

Slowly but surely, Sasha is turning into Smush Parker circa Summer of 2007 when the Lakers said to Smush, you are not in our future plans. I predict the same thing will happen in the summer of 2011, if the Lakers don't try to unload his expiring contract before the trade deadline during the 2010-11 season. As for this year, it's pretty evident the Laker bench is non existent and Sasha's not helping himself, or the team. He needs to hit up Smush on Twitter or something before it's too late!

(Stats from BasketballReference)