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"FacebookPinterestGetty Images\n\nJames Goldstein isn't just another basketball fan. A Lakers season ticket holder since 1961, you may have seen him sitting with Kanye West during fashion week, noticed his house on the cover of Architectural Digest, or read about his romance with Jayne Mansfield. He keeps the specifics of his wealth and power vague, but his clout is unmistakable. Always courtside, draped in couture and topped off with those signature wide brimmed hats, he's recognizable during any broadcast. During the regular season, Goldstein attends practices and press conferences, even occasionally popping up in the locker room. During the NBA Playoffs, he criss-crosses the map, attending as many games as possible and constantly reminding us how enmeshed he is in the league's fabric. There's been much written about Jimmy, but it's still rare to hear from the man himself. So GQ asked him to check in with us periodically during this year's playoffs and tell us about his experiences. This is his second dispatch.\n\nAs told to Myles Brown:\n\nMonday night was my 24th game in 23 days. I considered going east, but I decided I'm going to go back to L.A. and go through withdrawal. After seeing playoff games for 23 straight days, I will have five days of no games. It's not going to be easy, but I didn't want to commute between Miami and Indiana.\n\nThe two Laker games last weekend were both very exciting. I was pulling for Oklahoma City. During Game 4, the Lakers maintained a lead between seven and twelve points after jumping out early in the game. I was starting to feel a little bit pessimistic because the Thunder went for such a long time without cutting into the deficit, until finally in the fourth quarter they made their move.\n\nKobe was definitely in the middle of the Laker losses in Game 2 and Game 4. He trusts his teammates as long as things are going well. But when they're behind, he decides he's going to do it himself. I've seen it for years and nothing changes.\n\nI will say that my expectations of Kobe go either way. I've seen enough games where he's come through and I've seen enough where he hasn't. Monday night I could see Kobe still trying to win the game when they were 15 points down with two minutes to go. The expression on his face, the admonishing of his teammates, was so strong even at that point. Michael Jordan had those same qualities. As far as their ability on the court, I think it's pretty hard to pick one of them over the other, so I'd rate them equally.\n\nAs I was walking off the court towards the press room at the end of Game 5, a middle aged woman came up to my seat and stopped me. In Oklahoma more than any other city, everybody wants a photo with me. So at first, before even looking carefully at the woman I thought, \"She probably wants a photo with me.\" Then she introduced herself. She was the governor of Oklahoma. So she wanted to meet me and we had a nice conversation. That was pretty interesting.\n\nWhen the Sonics moved, I was upset as a fan because Seattle had such a good basketball tradition and supported their team. So I didn't think they deserved to lose their team. I put the blame on the previous owner of the team for being willing to sell his team to Oklahoma group when it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. I don't blame the current owners. They're from Oklahoma and Clay Bennett has become a good friend of mine. I think he's a terrific guy. That was his plan and I think the previous owner should have realized that.\n\nAt the press conference Monday night, I was sitting in the front row. Mike Brown didn't choose to address me that night. But if I had been thinking quickly when he did address me after that heartbreaking defeat in Game 2, my question would have been \"How do you maintain your sense of humor in the face of such a terrible defeat?\" Because I really give him credit for keeping everything in perspective.\n\nShaquille used to address me from time to time during press conferences. During the Finals, Pat Riley would ask me questions. But last week I wasn't ready for it. I go into these press conferences feeling that it's not my place to ask questions because everyone in the room with the exception of me is from the media. They're doing their jobs and I feel like I've gotten a special privilege by being allowed in after the game and if I were to interject myself by asking questions, it would be taking it too far.\n\nI attend the press conferences for the insight, particularly what the coaches have to say. I've found that the player's portion of the press conference really isn't significant, but the coaches do have interesting comments that I do enjoy listening to. It also provides me access to media and in between the Q&amp;amp;A from whomever's at the podium, often a lot of time goes by. Sometimes I have some good discussions with the media.\n\nI have developed a lot of friendships with the media. During the Finals in particular, when there's off days and I'm on the road and I have nothing better to do than to go to the media sessions with the players where players are stationed around the court, I move from station to station and I see a lot of media people that I know. Many international media approach me and I have a lot of fun with that.\n\nI smile when I see Russell Westbrook's fashion choices. Wearing glasses without any lenses in them I don't think is something I admire, but if the players want to look like mirrors, that's their prerogative.\n\nI do think players are making an attempt to be more stylish. I never liked the hip hop look of baggy pants, t shirts down to the knee and cap on backwards. That was something that never appealed to me and I never understood why the style was adopted en masse. Allen Iverson did it in a way that had a little bit of his own personality attached to it. I can't remember precisely what it is that he did, but he wasn't the average looking guy.\n\nSunday's game, with the Clippers down 3-0, I had to really admire them for their effort in that game. They could have just taken the approach that even if they won the game, they still had no chance in the series. But they didn't take that approach. They really fought hard. They scrambled after every loose ball, they caused most of the loose balls to occur and they were very in that game. So I applaud the Clippers for their effort Sunday.\n\nPeter Holt told me that he's ecstatic over the way the Spurs was playing right now. He said, \" I never dreamed anything like this could happen because this was supposed to be our rebuilding year.\" With Tim Duncan being rejuvenated, I think they'll be one of the favorites next year as well.\n\nI gave one of my t shirts to Tim Duncan's wife last week. She sits right behind me in San Antonio and she loved the shirt. At the game in L.A. the other day, Tim Duncan, who's a very quiet, reserved guy, came up to me and shook my hand. He thanked me for giving his wife the shirt and said she liked it so much. I asked him, \"How did you like the t shirt?\" He said, \"My wife loved the t shirt and that's the only thing that's important.\"\n\nI've had the same seat with the Clippers since they moved to Los Angeles, which I believe has been 29 years. But I gained the access that I have roughly 25 years ago. As I was going to both Laker and Clipper games the players started taking notice because there weren't many people going to see both teams. I was friendly with Don Casey, who was the coach of the Clippers and I started having locker room access. Then he became an assistant coach with the Celtics and I started traveling to the Celtics playoff games and got locker room access there.\n\nWhen I went to see the Clippers play Houston in the playoffs, which I believe was 1993, the Houston people knew me from sitting near their bench at Laker games and gave me total access to everything. They were so nice to me that I continued going to the Houston games after the Clippers were eliminated and pretty soon, I had apparently become Rudy Tomjanavich's good luck charm. I was expected to be at every one of their practices. The media wasn't allowed in, no other fans were allowed in, but I was there. During their two championships seasons, I became almost part of their team. From that point on, I've really had special access and as time goes on, I've gotten to know more players, owners, front office people, etcetera, of most of the teams.\n\nI haven't gotten very involved with the Eastern Conference Playoffs this year because I've been at a Western Conference game every day and I've only been able to catch bits and pieces of the Eastern Conference games on television. Game 4 in Indiana I did see, because it didn't conflict with a Western Conference game.\n\nI think Miami has shown that they miss Chris Bosh very badly. I haven't heard anything lately on the status of his injury, but with him I think very strongly that they would make the NBA Finals. But I don't know what's going to happen. I like the individual stars that Miami has very much, but I don't like it that they were able to put them all on the same team. They have three very good players, but the rest of the team is not very good. So it will be interesting to see if they can overcome that.\n\nLeBron has size, strength, athleticism, and his skills in both shooting and passing. He's certainly one of the all time greats. I don't buy the criticisms of his fourth quarter play for one second. I think at times he's shown he's willing to take the last shot and he's shown that if he's covered he's willing to make the pass. I don't see anything wrong with that.\n\nI also don't believe that championships are the measuring stick for a great player. I've never adhered to that kind of mentality. It's not tennis, it's not one on one, it's a team sport. If you don't have the right players around you, you're not going to win a championship, but that doesn't mean you're not a great player. I always felt that Bill Russell was unfairly judged as being superior to Wilt Chamberlain just because he won more championships. I considered Wilt Chamberlain a far superior player.\n\nMy friendship with Wilt Chamberlain began when he was traded to the Lakers. I don't recall any specific incident where we particularly hit it off so to speak, but I was a big fan of his, he recognized me from previous years and we used to meet up after the games at a bar room where the fans could go. We just became friends and started going after girls, going to parties together and that sort of thing. We wouldn't compete for women because we had completely different tastes. We acted as a team. He liked the very young, unsophisticated girls and at that time, I liked the older, more mature women. That's certainly changed over the years, but that's where I was at that point.\n\nI've always had ownership in the back of my mind and never quite had the financial assurances to do it on my own. Many of these teams are bought with groups of investors. Sometimes a general partner has a very small financial stake, but is still considered the owner. That would have been a way that perhaps I could have done it, but I'm not good with partners. I like to do things on my own. As my financial resources increased over the years, the prices increased at an even more rapid pace. So it never worked out for me to buy a team by myself.\n\nDavid Stern, a few years back, was twisting my arm to buy the Milwaukee franchise when it was for sale because I'm from Milwaukee and one of the conditions of the sale from Herb Kohl would be that the new owner would have to agree not to move the team. So I'm sure that David figured because I'm from Milwaukee that would be a perfect fit. But at the time when I first started exploring that, Michael Jordan stepped in and was a more attractive buyer, obviously. That didn't go through and then Herb Kohl took it off the market. Since then, I haven't really seriously considered it. Right now, I have such terrific access to everything that goes on in the NBA that I don't feel I need to be an owner at this point if I could afford it.\n\n I think it would be very interesting if I were an owner because I would continue to go to other team's games. I don't think that's something that would go over very well."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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