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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. It's not even surprising to watch Lakers coach Mike Brown address him from the podium, as he did Wednesday night. 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 first dispatch. \n\nAs told to Myles Brown: \n\nI fly coach. It's bad enough that I spend a couple thousand dollars a night on playoff tickets by trying to get the best available, so I usually try to save on travel expenses as much as I can. Sometimes people come up to me and say, 'Are you a rock star?' or that kind of thing. More often people will come up to me and recognize me from the games and say 'What game are you going to tonight?\"\n\nI bring dates to games, but not always. I'd say maybe fifty percent of the time this year, previous years. Probably not as high. I have several girls that I take regularly that all love the game and sometimes they request a certain nights. More often, I just ask them. They're all models. I have a girlfriend in Moscow who just visited me a couple weeks ago and took her to her first game, which turned out to be the double overtime game between the Lakers and Oklahoma. I think she enjoyed the experience.\n\nI've spent the earlier rounds of the playoffs in the Western Conference. It's mainly logistics, but also I'm very known in the West and have great contacts. In the past, the Eastern Conference games that I've gone to have not been at the expense of Western Conference games. In the Conference Finals, I often choose games that are on different nights than the Western Conference Finals. Or sometimes in the early rounds, the Western Conference series end earlier than the Eastern Conference series. So that's sort of how I play it.\n\nThe way I'm treated is fantastic in many of these cities. For example, both in Memphis and Oklahoma, I'm invited into the owner's private suite before the game. Everyone coming up to me in the media, surrounding me, the whole experience. That's certainly part of the thrill that I get by going through these playoff travels every year.\n\nIf there's a club that I know worth going to in any city, I'll be there. I don't like to go right home after a game, whether in L.A. or on the road. I would go alone if I knew where to go and I didn't have anyone lined up to go with me, because I figure that wherever I go, people are going to know me. But the idea of hanging out in these cities is not really part of the attraction. During the later rounds of the playoffs where I have to hang around in a city for two or three days, can be a little bit on the boring side. But I put up with that just like I put up with the drudgery of going through security at the airports, because of the excitement of the games themselves.\n\nHow do I get playoff tickets? It's different each night. For example, in Memphis, Chris Wallace is a very good friend of mine, so he always has a ticket for me in Memphis. When I go to Dallas, I am very well known through the Dallas organization. When he first bought the team, the first Dallas game that I attended in L.A., Mark Cuban came over and introduced himself and referred to me as a legend, which was very nice. So ever since then, we've been friends. In the case of Denver, even though I'm very good friends with the owner of Denver, he doesn't arrange a ticket for me. I'm getting a ticket through a fan that I've met in previous years. I have a terrific relationship with the entire Spurs organization. Peter Holt on down to everyone who works for the team to the players to the people in San Antonio. I've been going there for many years. In San Antonio, they set up a special seat for me whenever I go to the games there that doesn't exist the rest of the season.\n\nCertain players I'm closer to than others. Tony Parker and I have been good friends. We run into each other in France and we always have a little chat before the games. He opened a nightclub in San Antonio now that he wants to take me to after the games, that kind of thing.\n\nI have friends on every team and every team thinks I'm there to root for them. I try to put on a neutral stance as much as possible when I go to the games, with the exception of the Lakers games. The Lakers players are all aware that I root for the other team. With the exception of Kobe, they seem to take it pretty well.\n\nEvery now and then Kobe surprises me by walking up to me shaking hands and giving me a nice smile. But for the most part, he ignores me. He doesn't look at me and even went to the extent of telling Pau Gasol not to say hello to me. He's never explained why.\n\nPau and I were very good friends before he got traded to the Lakers. After he became a Laker, he's standing at the baseline during the Lakers warm ups and he would never say hello. Finally, during the All Star Weekend a couple years ago, when I ran into him and he wasn't putting on his 'Laker face' so to speak, he gave me a big hug and apologized for not being friendly to me at the games, but told me that it was because Kobe asked him not to be friendly to me.\n\nThe only other Laker who doesn't communicate with me or even give me a nod of recognition is Andrew Bynum, who I've never spoken one word to since he became a Laker seven years ago. All the other players are very nice to me.\n\nI have a terrific relationship with Ron Artest/Metta World Peace. He comes up to me at halftime of every game and has a little chat. During the NBA Finals in Boston, the Lakers had their own private dining room. He insisted that I go into the dining room with him, even though I told him that I didn't think it was a good idea. So he couldn't care less that I don't root for the Lakers.\n\nOklahoma City's arena, (in terms of liveliness) is number one, without a doubt. There's a lot of civic pride in the people that live there. The fans are not only the loudest, they're also the nicest.\n\n I'd never consider wearing one of the complimentary t shirts though. If I wore a shirt for one team, I don't think it'd be received well by the other team and I don't want that. Plus I don't like to blend in.\n\nI wear t shirts all the time. There's a James Goldstein t shirt that has become one of the hottest fashion items in Europe. My secretary discovered a t shirt being advertised on eBay with my picture on it. I knew nothing about it. There were two t shirts designed by this same entity: one of them was a Karl Lagerfeld t shirt, one was a James Goldstein t shirt. So I ordered a few to see what it was like and showed them to a few of my friends. They loved them and wanted one, so I ordered some more.\n\nWhen I went to Saint Tropez last summer, I gave a few out to some girls I knew. Pretty soon every girl in Saint Tropez was coming up to me asking me for a t shirt. So I knew I had a hot item with these t-shirts. Then during fashion week in Paris last October, a photographer who I'd given a t-shirt to, walked into a store called Colette, which is the hippest, most fashionable store in Paris. The owner of the store came up to him and said, 'Where did you get that t shirt?' He gave him my information, next thing I knew, I got an email saying 'We would like to sell the t shirt in our store.' So at that point I decided I would have to stop buying these t shirts from this source, which was in Bangkok, and start making it myself. So right now, I have a partner making the t shirt herself. We sold a few of them to the store in France, they resold them for $80 a piece and sold out within a very short time and reordered. So that's my t-shirt story."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/jimmy-speaks-the-goldstein-chronicles-part-i?mobify=0>