On assignment for The Mag, Ric Bucher takes calls from both of L.A.'s guns.

So I'm at the Houston airport's rental-car booth, struggling to get my license out, when the cell phone rings. Sleep-deprived and preoccupied, I answer it by simply saying, "Yeah?" Someone trying to disguise their voice says: "Do you know who this is?" Wonderment checks in, Cranky goes to the bench. "Shaq! What's going on?" The Lakers have just arrived at their Houston hotel and the Daddy has picked up messages left for media-relations director John Black. (I later congratulate Black for having the world's highest-paid secretary.) "I'm not practicing," the Daddy says, explaining that he has a daughter who lives in Houston and his left Achilles tendon is killing him. Then he asks how I'm doing -- that's how the Daddy is.

Knowing Shaq's unavailable, I call the team hotel and ask for Kobe's room, hoping he's using the same alias (you wouldn't guess in a million years). He is, but I get voice mail. I ask if we can hook up to talk about the story I'm working on. Most players don't even check their hotel voice mail, so I'm not surprised when I don't hear back from him. Dog-tired from my recent coast-to-coast-to-coast-to-coast-to-coast trip, I'm crashed when my cell phone rings at about half-past midnight. It's Kobe, explaining in his message that he had slept all day and just got my call. I get back to him the next day. "When do you need me, dog?" he asks -- that's how Kobe is.

I'm thinking this could be my toughest assignment of the year, because my story has to answer the question, "Whose team is it?" I wonder if Shaq and Kobe will both still be returning my calls after I finish.

Ric Bucher is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com.