Back when the Lakers were putting on shows as good as anything coming out of Hollywood, the coolest guy in the building might’ve been courtside.
Even across the country, everyone noticed Jack Nicholson.
“Growing up, the guy I looked at was Jack Nicholson,” Spike Lee said. “When I was sitting in the blue seats at the Garden, I said, ‘Hopefully one day I can sit courtside like my guy Jack Nicholson.’”
Lee eventually made it to the front row to watch his beloved Knicks. And this weekend, he and Nicholson will together make it to basketball’s Hall of Fame.
Along with fellow actor and entertainer Billy Crystal and businessman Alan Horwitz, they will be added to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery on Sunday, a few hours before this year’s class is enshrined in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Named for Goldstein, one of the NBA’s most familiar non-playing faces who attends some 100 games a year, the gallery recognizes fans for their knowledge and passion of basketball, along with their reputation within the basketball community and their appreciation for the history of the sport. Besides Goldstein, the gallery established in 2018 includes Penny Marshall and Raptors fan Nav Bhatia.
They are more famous than most, but at heart are just like the customers sitting way up in the cheap seats.
“I merely represent all devoted fans of the game we love,” said Crystal, a longtime Clippers ticket holder whose love of the team dates back to when they still played in San Diego.
Besides, for the most die-hard of fans, it’s never about where they sit. It’s just about being in the building when their team needs them most.
For Lee, that was May 8, 1970. Then 13 years old, he missed his father’s concert performance after receiving an offer to attend Game 7 of the NBA Finals. He wasn’t sitting close, but still had a great view to see Willis Reed walk on to the court with his injured leg that had forced him to miss Game 6 against the Lakers and had his availability in doubt for the decider.
“I’ve been to World Series, World Cup, Super Bowls and Olympics,” Lee said. “That’s the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life.”
The Knicks won that title and added another in 1973, though have only gotten close a couple times since Lee became a ticket holder after they drafted Patrick Ewing with the No. 1 pick in 1985. Horwitz’s Philadelphia 76ers are also still stuck in a lengthy drought, though still nothing quite like the Clippers, still waiting for their first chance to deliver for Crystal.
“He’s been suffering, too,” Lee said. “What makes it worse, he’s in L.A. and he’s all the years with the Clippers when the Lakers had Magic and Shaq and Kobe. Oh man, that was really rough.”
Nicholson was on the right side of the Los Angeles rivalry after becoming a Lakers ticket holder in the 1970s. The three-time Academy Award-winning actor would adjust his shooting schedules and personal meetings so he could be seated in his sunglasses next to the visiting bench at big Lakers games.
It was from that spot that he watched the Lakers blow a 24-point lead against Boston in Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals — a defeat Nicholson saw coming as the Celtics were rallying.
“It was late in the game and I just kept hearing, ‘Hey Doc, we’re dead men walking,’” said Doc Rivers, then the Celtics coach. “And he just kept saying it. I didn’t quite know what he was talking about and then I figured it out late when we came back and won the game.”
The two would become friends when Rivers later coached the Clippers, and the Lakers’ most famous fan even went to check out the other side when they were facing the Houston Rockets in the 2015 playoffs.
“Jack came to that game,” Rivers said. “Showed up at a Clipper game and then we blew a (huge) lead and he left and I don’t think he’ll ever go back to another Clipper game again.”
Now 87, Nicholson no longer goes to see the Lakers and is the only one of the four new superfans not expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony.
Lee is still a regular at Madison Square Garden, now wearing a Jalen Brunson jersey that was once a John Starks one. The Hall of Fame honor is significant for him, he said, because of how close he has become to many NBA players through his film career, from Air Jordan commercials with Michael Jordan to movies such as “He Got Game.”
“I know these guys and especially the visiting teams, a lot of these guys, they come on the court and they come and say hello to me,” Lee said, chuckling at how many times Jordan would profanely tell him to sit down. “They give me five, give me a hug — and these are the opposing teams.”
Sometimes, those interactions backfire and Lee bears the blame for a Knicks loss. He was blasted for riling up Reggie Miller in the playoffs when Indiana came back for a Game 5 victory. When Kobe Bryant poured in an opponent-record 61 points on Feb. 2, 2009, he was motivated by not letting Lee run his mouth if the Knicks won when they were meeting later that night for a project they were working on.
Lee has a stat sheet from the game signed by Bryant, who wrote: “Spike, this (expletive) was your fault!!!!”
Now he’ll join Jordan, Bryant and many other greats in the Hall of Fame.
“Resorting to some Brooklyn language,” Lee said, “who would have thunk it?”
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AP Sports Writer Steve Megargee in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
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