Settle down. Kobe won’t be here. We heard he has a thing in Colorado to get to.

Sure, the space might be on its third concept in two years, but that isn’t going to stop Lagasse’s Stadium at Palazzo from pulling out all the stops for its grand opening today. First, Lakers point guard Derek Fisher is signing copies of his book Character Driven: Life, Lessons and Basketball from noon to 2 p.m. at the revamped sports bar.

Then tonight, they bring in perhaps the greatest athlete of the ’90s to open the new joint in style. Gretzky? No. Jordan? Absolutely not. Mattingly? Fantastic guess, but in this case incorrect. It’s former MTV Sports and professional weird-sports-trier Dan Cortese. And yes, if you watch that clip, the whole show looked like that. All the time. It had a five-year run. No, really, five years. Thanks, MTV and the ’90s!

Other, less accomplished athletes and entertainers to be on the 8:30 p.m. green carpet are, of course, Chef Emeril Lagasse, Aubrey O’Day (assuming no new naked pictures of her have come out since last night), Jeremy Piven, Kevin Dillon and Rex Lee from Entourage, Beth Ostrosky Stern (wife of Howard), Bruce Jenner, Danica Patrick, Frank Trigg, Gary Payton, Greg Maddux, Warren Sapp, the Clippers’ Craig Smith, Carson Kressley, Dara Torres, Law & Order actress Elisabeth Rohm, Melissa Rycroft with fiance Tye Strickland, and MMA fighters Gina Carano, Tyson Griffin and Urijah Faber.

By Jason Scavone

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