Goldstein well known in NBA

Superfan gets in everywhere

By Nicholas J. Cotsonika

Who is this guy below?

An old rock star? He looks a little like Tom Petty. He has long gray hair and wears clothes like python leather hats, colorful scarves, ostrich leather jackets, designer jeans and python leather boots.

Is he an agent? Everybody in the NBA knows him -- or at least knows of him -- from the commissioner to the coaches to the players to the media.

Maybe a reporter? Not only does he sit courtside at games all over the country, he sits in the front row at news conferences. He has gone to practices and gotten into locker rooms.

James Goldstein is none of the above, but to say he's just a fan wouldn't do him justice.
"He has so much invested in our sport," NBA commissioner David Stern said. "He probably has the largest investment of any fan in America, so we get a kick out of him. He has got quite a flair, and we love him as a sort of a superfan."

A superfan with quite a flair -- that's about as well as you can sum him up.
Goldstein hands out an oversized business card with his name, his contact information and three bullet points:
Fashion.
Architecture.
Basketball.

They're not occupations. They're preoccupations. And they aren't necessarily in order of importance.
Goldstein travels to Europe twice a year to "pick out the most unique, artistic clothes" he can find.
"I know a lot of the top designers and the top models in the fashion business," he said.
This is how the Wall Street Journal described his house: "If ever a man's home was his castle, here it is: A curiously monastic, modernist citadel magically suspended atop Benedict Canyon."

It has hosted fashion and movie shoots.
But basketball appears to be Goldstein's biggest passion. He goes to about 120 games a year. He lives in Los Angeles and has season tickets to the Lakers and the Clippers, but that isn't enough to satisfy his NBA appetite. He hops from city to city in the playoffs.

Because the Lakers didn't make the playoffs -- the Clippers never do -- he has had to do more hopping this year than he has in almost two decades of doing this.
"This has been a real challenge," he said. "I've been on the road now for over six weeks straight, but it's been a lot of fun."
Goldstein got tickets in San Antonio through his connections with the Spurs.

He came to Detroit with no tickets, but four hours before Game 3, he landed one of the best seats in the house -- front row, midcourt. He was in the second row on one of the baselines for Game 4.
"It's amazing the way things work out if you don't get too impatient and jump at the first thing that comes along," he said. "Eventually it always seems to work out."

Although Goldstein is from L.A., he isn't an L.A. fan. In fact, he has been known to root against the Lakers.
"I'm an NBA fan," he said. "I'm a purist. I've got friends on every team. I follow every team closely. I really have a lot of mixed emotions in this series, because I have good friends on both teams, I appreciate how good each team is and what I'm really rooting for is a close, exciting series."

Goldstein said his closest friends on the Pistons were Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace. But he has met everyone.
"I met him my rookie year, man," said Lindsey Hunter, who broke in with the Pistons in 1993-94.
"We appreciate him," Darvin Ham said. "He's loyal. There's nothing like loyalty in this world."
"He's pretty cool," Elden Campbell said. "He's a pretty laid-back dude."
He's also pretty mysterious.

Asked for his age, Goldstein said: "I'll let you estimate that." Considering he kept stats for the Milwaukee Hawks as a teenager in the 1950s, we'll guess he's in his 60s.
He's obviously rich. But how rich? Is he a billionaire?

"Even though the Wall Street Journal, of all papers, called me a billionaire, I'm not really a billionaire," he said.
OK, he's a multi-millionaire. But how did he amass his fortune? The rumor is real estate -- Century City in L.A.
"Let's just say," he said, "I've got some investments that don't require a lot of time on my part and generate enough income for me to do things like this that I really enjoy."