Part 2: What It Is Like to Sit Courtside at a Lakers Game

This the second part of a 2-part article recapping my experience watching the Lakers Vs. Kings game on Friday, January 1, 2010. Sitting courtside I was witness to Kobe’s game winning 3-pointer at the buzzer and the Lakers first 20+ point comeback since 2006.

Sitting courtside might be worth every penny of those couple-thousand dollar seats. I must thank my boss for taking me to this game. I would not have spent that money on my own.

At least not prior to this experience.

While Jack Nicholson and others may like to make a fashionably late entrance to their courtside seats, my boss disagrees and so do I.

We showed up an hour early to the game and watched the guys shoot around and talked shop with the ushers and ballboys. It is well worth the experience to see who is out there pregame and feed them a few balls that bounce off in your direction.




Our padded seats were about as good as you can get. Sitting between the Lakers bench and the scorers table, we had a better view of the court than Phil Jackson and yet still felt included in the Lakers huddles during timeouts.

Two co-workers of ours sat across the court from us and while they probably had fewer distractions in front of them (i.e. the ballboys were constantly chasing down towels or warm-ups during substitutions), I feel they probably missed out on a lot of dialogue that can be overheard closer to the bench.

The most noticeable aspect to the game from that close was the amount of complaining that goes on to the refs. I’ve played in hundreds of games, seen thousands on TV, and sat 5-7 rows back for hundreds more, but I never would have thought that so much complaining went on from every single player.

And I mean EVERY single player. My boss said that Ron Artest actually is one of the best at not complaining (he was injured this game), but everyone else constantly had the refs ear.

Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers