Basketball, Rugby Find Common Ground in L.A.

They are crawling all over Los Angeles this weekend, some of the world’s biggest names in basketball and rugby rubbing scraped elbows here for the first, and probably the last, time.

We have All-Stars and All Blacks. Timberwolves and Wallabies. Lakers and Les Bleus. Spurs and Springboks.

The circus and the carnival have come to town the same weekend. The circus, of course, is the NBA All-Star game. Except it’s no longer just that, it’s much longer than that, a whole week now of parties and promotion, of rookie games and celebrity games and kids’ games, three rings crossed with three-pointers as L.A. gets its glitz fix in between the Grammys and the Oscars.

On a smaller stage down the freeway from Staples Center, an important international rugby tournament takes place at the Home Depot Center. It’s called the Team Roc USA Sevens, and it’s the inaugural North American stop on the International Rugby Board World Sevens Series tour. The tournament features two days of what’s been called “carnival rugby,” fast-breaking seven-a-side rugby played amid ear-pounding music and beer-pounding patrons.

The NBA All-Stars don’t figure to notice, but rugby and the Association have a few things in common.

For example: Team Roc, sponsor of the L.A. rugby tournament, is owned by Roc-a-Fella Records, a hip-hop label popular among NBA players and fans. This week, Roc-a-Fella has feet in both camps, sponsoring stops on the World Sevens and NBA All-Star party tours.

The sports also share a common jargon, although it is advised to keep the accompanying rugby-to-hoops translation dictionary handy this weekend, because things could get confusing.

* Scrum

Rugby: A formation, used to restart play, in which players on each team interlock.

NBA: A style of play popularized by the Detroit Pistons in the late 1980s. Briefly reprised this week by a new generation of Pistons and Sacramento King Brad Miller.

* Try

Rugby: A score worth five points, awarded when the attacking team crosses the opposition goal line and puts the ball on the ground.

NBA: What the Philadelphia 76ers are paying Glenn Robinson lots of money to do more often than occasionally.

* Pitch

Rugby: The playing field.

NBA: What McDonald’s is paying Yao Ming, and not Kobe Bryant, to do for them.

* Maul

Rugby: Created when a player carrying the ball and still on his feet is held up by one or more of his opponents.

NBA: Created when the Orlando Magic plays a scheduled game.

* Props

Rugby: Two front-row players. In the 15-man game, they usually wear Nos. 1 and 3.

NBA: Proper respect. In Sunday’s All-Star game, only the starters believe they have it.

* Loosehead

Rugby: The No. 1 prop in a scrum.

NBA: Rasheed Wallace.

* Hooker

Rugby: The forward supported by the props in a scrum responsible for gaining possession of the ball by blocking or hooking it with a foot.

NBA: It’s All-Star week in L.A. The punch line is all yours.

Available for viewing this weekend:

*

TODAY

* “NBA All-Star Saturday Night,”

TNT, 5:30 p.m.

Local fans can watch Sacramento’s Peja Stojakovic bid for a third consecutive three-point title, Golden State’s Jason Richardson bid for a third consecutive slam-dunk title and New Orleans’ Baron Davis stoke misty-eyed UCLA nostalgia by participating in the skills competition. Who knew then that those would be the good old days?

* UCLA at Arizona,

Fox Sports Net, Noon

The Bruins come in 6-6 in the Pacific 10 after blowing a 14-point lead, missing all 11 of their shots in overtime and losing to last-place Arizona State. Enjoy the skills competition while it lasts.

* World Sevens Rugby,

Fox Sports World, 3:30 p.m.

A niche within an American niche sport, seven-man rugby gets a two-day display at the Home Depot Center and on Fox Sports World, which will also air knockout-round coverage on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The top world rugby powers are here, New Zealand’s All Blacks, South Africa’s Springboks, Australia’s Wallabies, defending World Cup champion England. Sevens rugby would seem made for American attention spans -- seven-minute halves, lots of scoring -- except for one thing: the U.S. team is a non-contender.

*

SUNDAY

* NASCAR Nextel Cup Daytona 500,

Channel 4, 10:30 a.m.

NASCAR opens its 2004 season with a new sponsor, new let’s-chase-the-NFL-some-more rules (this year’s schedule features a 10-race “playoff” run) and loads of marketing momentum. Consider the two special sections USA Today published Friday.

NASCAR special section: 20 pages, including full-page ads from nine corporations, including Nextel and Visa.

NBA All-Star special section: eight pages, half of them full-page ads from American Express featuring a great player who last appeared in an NBA All-Star game in 1992: Magic Johnson.

* NBA All-Star game,

TNT, 5:45 p.m.

NBA ratings on TNT are up 35% this season, and a large reason is the studio team of Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson and Magic Johnson. Barkley appeared on Thursday’s “Tonight Show” and checked in with a stint so funny, Jay Leno ought to consider sending in Barkley for pinch-monologues.

Other reasons to watch: Can the East hang with the West? Does Yao Ming really deserve to start ahead of Shaquille O’Neal? Is this the last time we see Kobe Bryant in an All-Star game representing the Lakers?