SALT LAKE
CITY -He was a Jazz fan Saturday, in an L.A. confidential sort
of way.
He's a guy with Lakers and Clippers season tickets.
But Jim Goldstein is really a citizen of the hoops world, a man
with a basketball Jones, as the street people put it.
And only an endless fix of live National Basketball Association
action around
the country come playoff time can feed the monkey with the munchies
on his back.
That makes this Bob Dylan lookalike a rolling NBA stone. He went
to 30 playoff road games last year. Been to 18 so far this year.
And he lives,
but doesn't die, for L.A.
As a man
who considers himself a basketball purist, Goldstein drinks in
his hardcourt straight up. That means he often goes to games not
involving Los Angeles teams. And that he frequently roots for
the road team…or the team everybody else is against.
Saturday,
he was pulling for the Jazz.
"Just
an emotion that came over me," he said.
And that
was before the Jazz made a Jim Croce tune out of the Lakers, turning
them into a jigsaw puzzle with a bunch of pieces gone. The 112-77
loss to Utah, the first game of the NBA Western Conference finals
at the Delta Center, was the worst defeat in Laker playoff history.
Fine by
Goldstein.
"I've
been mostly going against the grain with the Lakers for 35 years,"
he says. Listening to the L.A. broadcasting crews…all the
hype. It just rubs me the wrong way sometimes.
"So
I don't call myself a Laker fan. I'm an NBA fan. And in these
playoffs, I've found myself pulling a lot for Utah."
Which is
all the more interesting when you look at Goldstein and listen
to him.
It doesn't get any more El Ay then this. When Goldstein haunts
the Great Western Forum, home of the Lakers, it's as good as it
gets. He sits in Wolf country, at one end of the visitors bench,
with Jack Nicholson, himself on the other end.
Michael
Ovitz, the onetime big cheese at the House That the Mouse Built…Disney…sat
next to Goldstein for years. Dyan Cannon, the other poster child
of La La fandom, is down a one end of the court.
When Goldstein
tools to Laker or Clipper games, it's in his 1961 Rolls convertible,
white with tan upholstery.
When he
hands you his business card, your palm disappears under a formidable
hunk of cardboard, big as a small billboard.
The legend
on it says:
"James F. Goldstein"
"Fashion"
"Architecture"
"Basketball"
The fashion
part is readily apparent in his apparel.
"Gaultier…definitely
my man," he says. "I like to coordinate my clothes all
from the same designer."
Saturday
that meant a red-and-light-blue pin-striped Gaultier sport coat.
Gaultier T-shirt with tapirs, grass huts and guys in plantation
hats on it.
"He
has a Cuban phase," said Goldstein.
Belt with
a clock buckle. Italian jeans. Black Versace boots.
Kool enough
for you, gang?
Topping
the ensemble: A "King of slam" baseball cap, given to
him by
Sam Cassell of the New Jersey Nets, back when Sam was with the
Houston Rockets.
"I've
become friends with a lot of NBA people." Says Goldstein.
His ensemble
fits nicely into his contemporary house in Benedict Canyon, above
the Beverly Hills.
"You
can see clear to the ocean," he says.
It's been
a work in progress, taking 20 years. It began with Frank Lloyd
Wright overtones and Goldstein kept adding his own touches.
Even it
if turns out he's something of a Costanza when it comes to house-building.
Like the "Seinfeld" character who likes to introduce
himself as an architect without actual benefit of earning a living
at it, Goldstein isn't a pro either.
"I'm
in California investments," he says. "But I've studied
the principles of architecture a lot. And I've applied them to
my house and made it unique. It's got skylights everywhere that
open with the press of a button. The idea is living outside, inside."
His humble
abode is rare enough that it's welcomed several supermodels, he
says, for magazine shoots. Moss. Paulina. Evangelista. For Vogue,
he says. And Harper's Bazaar.
What, no
Playboy?
"Between
you and me, yes. But don't put that in there," he says.
I won't
tell if you won't.
"Oh,
you can put it in if you want to," he adds.
Well, now.
If that
ain't enough Tinseltown for you, there's the glitterati elbows
Goldstein says he's rubbed in his NBA travels. He's wormed his
way into practices this year with New Jersey. And the Detroit
Pistons. And the Boston Celtics. Often, he gets to shoot with
players before or after workouts.
"When
I was here for the Rockets series, I was at one practice where
it was just Charles Barkley and me, shooting before anyone else
got here," he says.
Doubt this
if you want. But Goldstein was spotted after one Rockets practice
here, firing up free throws, stride for strike with The Glide,
himself, Clyde Drexler.
"My
spot, however, is the three-point shot, straight-in from the key,"
he says.
Leftovers
from a hoops career for Nicolet High School, back in Milwaukee,
where he first got bitten by the NBA but in the 50's following
the old Milwaukee Hawks in Hall of Famer Bob Petit's rookie season.
Of the rounds
he's made, one of his favorite places is the Delta Center.
"I
really enjoy coming here because the arena it's so nice, with
such a great atmosphere. And the people go out of their way to
treat you right and…"
He broke
off in mid-sentence. The crowd was roaring. Halftime was over.
"Catch
you later. I can't miss a minute of play," he said.
Here was
a man who couldn't wait to get back to a 26-point game.
There may
be no one in Utah more ready to Feed the Fever.
There may
be no one anywhere better depicting the NBA slogan in the well-tanned
flesh: "I love this game."
jim@jamesfgoldstein.com