Watch Out, Luke, She Marries Really Fast

It must be cool being Luke Walton. Your dad is Bill Walton, you play for the Lakers and now comes word that Britney Spears has a crush on you.

That’s what “Access Hollywood” told Walton after the Lakers’ game against San Antonio on Tuesday night.

“Oh yeah?” Walton said. “I’ve had a crush on her for a long time.”

His next move, he said, is getting her a ticket to a game.

“I’d sit her as close [to the court] as I could get a ticket,” he said.

Trivia time: Walton was drafted in the second round by the Lakers last year. Brian Cook was their first-round pick. Who was the Lakers’ first-round pick in 2002?

Scammed: Getting a ticket to a Laker playoff game isn’t easy, even for celebrities. Actor David Arquette, who is married to Courteney Cox, planned to go to Tuesday night’s game.

He told “Access Hollywood” he paid a scalper $100 for a ticket.

“It was already scanned, and I couldn’t get in,” Arquette said.

All in the family: Southern California has two first-place baseball teams, and the way former Dodger general manager Fred Claire sees it, the success of the Angels is good for the Dodgers, and vice versa.

Claire, in an MLB.com column, wrote: “They have a tendency to help each other when things are going well. When there is interest in baseball in a region where there are two major league teams, it can help both teams.” Claire noted that former Dodger publicity man Red Patterson used to point out that in 1958, the year after the Dodgers and Giants moved out of New York, Yankee attendance dropped by nearly 70,000.

Name game: Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune reported that Kim Cattrall of HBO’s “Sex and the City” went to the Kentucky Derby and bet on Smarty Jones because her character’s name in the show was Samantha Jones. “I would have done likewise if a horse in the race had my name, but I couldn’t find one called Mr. Big,” Downey wrote.

It was in the mail: Retired Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Loel Schrader said that about 35 years ago, when he was working for the Des Moines Register, he conducted an interview by mail with Roger Bannister, who broke the four-minute barrier in the mile in 1954.

“Our budget was scant and a transatlantic phone call was out of the question,” Schrader said. “So, after obtaining Bannister’s address, I sent him 10 questions. Two weeks later, Bannister returned the questionnaire, and thanked me for contacting him.”

How times have changed.

Trivia answer: Chris Jefferies of Fresno State. Jefferies was traded on draft day to the Toronto Raptors, along with guard Lindsey Hunter, for Tracy Murray and the draft rights to Kareem Rush.

And finally: Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News, on the Colorado Rockies’ woes: “They might be able to predict hurricanes and tornadoes, but meteorologists have been unable to explain why the air is thinner at Coors Field more often in the top of an inning.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.