NBA Stadiums Blog Day: The Running Thread

It’s NBA Stadiums blog day. Today bloggers from around the NBA blogosphere tell stories about their favorite NBA stadiums and look back at some of their most memorable NBA stadium experiences. Here’s a running thread of what everyone has contributed:

48 Minutes of Hell gives us his experience attending the first Spurs and Suns regular season game following their epic 2007 western conference semi-final series.

Hoops Avenue talks about being in attendance for some exciting games at the Washington D.C.’s “Phone Booth”.

Forum Blue and Gold appropriately takes a look a back at one of my favorite stadiums, the Great Western Forum. Whenever I hear the Forum mentioned, I think of Chick Hearn announcing to his listeners that the game was a sell out with “seventeen thousand five-o-five in attendance”. Speaking of Chick, you should definitely read this SI piece from 1984 on Chick Hearn.  "Painting word pictures that have made him the Michelangelo of broadcasters, Chick Hearn is the enduring voice of the Lakers."  I've said it before, Magic and Chick are the main reasons I'm a basketball fan.

The Timberwolves Blog Canis Hoopus has some stories about attending NBA games in Milwaukee.

College Wolf of the T-Wolves Blog tells us a story of driving thirty straight hours to see his Wolves play my Lakers at the Staple Center in 2004. "I can't (and shouldn't) divulge a large amount of this information due to the graphic content involved."

Rob from Upside and Motor compares and contrasts his experiences at the old Reunion Arena to the state of the art American Airlines Arena. Reading his post, I couldn't help but think back about how I used to think Rolando Blackman was a Basketball God before I even watched him play.  I didn't have cable in my early stages of fandom (late 80s, early 90s), so I imagined things in my head based on the few times I would see a player play against the Lakers on television and based on the player stats I would pick up on those free Hoops basketball cards I'd get from McDonalds. Blackman had tremendous stats and played well against the Lakers. That's why when the Knicks picked him up in 1992 I immediately thought: "Ewing's stats and previous success against the Lakers + Blackman's stats and previous success against = Championship!" Let's just say my analysis has evolved a bit since then.

Speaking of the 1992-93 Knicks....On Slam Online, Marcel Mutoni tells us about his experience attending game 5 of the Easter Conference Finals between the Bulls and the Knicks (you know, the Charles Smith gets his stuff sent back a million times game). Jealous doesn't even begin to describe what I am right now, Marcel.  That series had so many gems. Number one might have to be this dunk by John Starks. And how about Mike Walcheski introducing the Knicks during that series ("Paaaaaattttrrriiccck Ewing").

What does Jannero Pargo have to do with Big Macs? Give Me the Rock has the info.

Joshua of 3 Shades of Blue with the praise for the FedEx Forum and a rundown of some memorable Memphis Grizzlies games he had a chance to see live.  I wonder if the Jerry West had anything to do with the arena being named the Forum.

Tom Ziller tells us why Sacramento's Arco Arena is so bad that it's good. Arco, Memorial (in Portland), and the old Seattle Coliseum had to be some of the loudest arenas in NBA history. Something about those Northwestern NBA fans (Also see: Oracle Arena in Oakland).

Brandon from BallerBlogger runs down some memorable moments at Denver's Pepsi Center. I know that there have been at least three games between the Lakers and Nuggets in that building where the game was won on a buzzer beating bucket.

Truth About It blogs about seeing Michael Jordan and Bernard King battle it Landover in 1990. That 1990-91 season was a magical one for BK. He was able to come back after a catastrophic knee injury and become an all-star. I believe he was the come back player of the year that season (they still had that award back then).  As I've blogged about before, Bernard is definitely one of the most underrated players of all-time (this has a lot to do with his injuries). He was the Carmelo Anthony of his day.

Bullets Forever has an open thread up where some of the readers are posting fond memories of being in attendance for Bullets/Wizard playoff games.

From SI's Vault, here's a write up on the Boston Garden. Good trivia question: When was the last NBA game played at the Boston Garden?

SJ at The Rip City Project pays tribute to the Rose Garden.

Gilbertology gives us a run down of Agent Zero's best performances in each NBA stadium. His best performance happened to be in the Staples Center against my Lakers.

Sweets from All Balls Don't Bounce posted his experience getting to sit in the front row of a Raptors game. 

Speaking of sitting front row, I got a chance to sit on the floor at the Staples Center for the first time this season. I have to say that floor seats are highly overrated and overpriced. At Laker home games last season, floor seats were $2300 per ticket. And there's a waiting list for those seats a mile long. Yet with floor seats, you don't get the best view of the court, and you've always got some camera guy, security guard, or arena official blocking your way during timeouts and between quarters. I think the best seats are about 5 rows up at center court. At Lakers games last season, those seats were about $250 per ticket. While both are kind of obnoxiously expensive, it's almost inexcusable to pay for floor seats at the Staples Center unless you're some movie star or recording artist that needs the camera time to promote a new movie or album. 

Some Bulls fans over at Blog-a-Bull are reminiscing about Chicago Stadium. Here is an idea of how loud Chicago Stadium used to get.

If you have something to contribute to the NBA Stadiums Blog Day event, please shoot me an email at jonesonthenba [at] gmail.com.