Get ready for what is likely the pettiest post I have ever written. I'm not generally in favor of pointing out stuff like this and I'm not trying to cause any controversy but I just found this amusing.
So it's All-Star Saturday Night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on February 14, 2015. The Shooting Stars portion of the night is complete and we are waiting for the Skills Competition to begin. I am sitting in Section 104 in the corner of the building. Right below me is the tunnel which connects the concourse to the arena in the middle of the section I am sitting in. I'm in the first row right above the tunnel so there's nobody in front of me. A speaker obstructs the court at the left side of the court where the Slam Dunk competition will occur (although I don't know that yet) but I can see the hoop itself perfectly.
To kill time between the first and second events of the night, we are trying to people spot. Eventually, we will find Rihanna, Nicky Minaj, John McEnroe, Floyd Mayweather, Spike Lee, Julianne Moore and a whole host of other characters. It's at this point that we spy Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, and one of his assistant coaches, Luke Walton, walking in front of us and looking up into our section with the help of one of the staff from the arena. The Warriors have the best record in the Western Conference so Kerr, with the help of Walton and the rest of his coaches, are in charge of things for the West in the All-Star Game the next night. He's kind of a big deal.
From our point of view, Kerr is not happy being told he's sitting in Section 104 and he's totally trying to get out of it. He pulls the dude showing him to his seat aside and talks with him for a while. Kerr is standing under the blue arrow in the picture above; the guy he's talking to is under the green arrow (Walton is under the orange arrow headed to his seat). It didn't seem to work. Kerr relents and heads up to his seat in Row 7, which is exactly one row behind me. The kid next to us asks for a selfie with Kerr, which he allows, and then we turn our attention back to the court since the Skills Competition is about ready to start.
I already felt good enough about this weekend but now I have better seats for the Three Point Contest and Slam Dunk competition than the head coach of the Western Conference All-Stars? I feel bad for Steve Kerr but whatever.
The next thing we know, Kerr's gone. I don't know what happened here because I was honestly trying to pay attention to the event rather than the customer behind me but whatever he said to the dude escorting him to his seat seems to have worked. He didn't want to sit where they showed him and so clearly he wasn't going to. Instead of occupying seat 12 or whatever it was in Row 7, they parked him on foot in the area behind the handicapped accessible seating area just to the right in front of us. He mostly stayed out of sight from our seats, leaning against the wall right in front of us, while the arena staff kept checking on him. He can be seen standing up below the blue arrow in the picture above, for a moment not hidden from our view.
Eventually, he gets a seat. He says hello to the guy in the wheelchair in the accessible seating area and then plonks himself down on a folding chair in that section away from me and the kid who asked for a selfie. His final seat can be seen in the photo below. Kerr is once again below the blue arrow.
Now I'm not saying Kerr doesn't deserve to sit where he sat. I just think it's funny that he didn't want to sit where his ticket said and that he has enough pull this past weekend to get re-assigned. If I had any sort of pull, I'd move my seat too, although I kind of liked it even though it was smack dab in the middle of the row. The funniest thing, though, is that he didn't get Luke Walton moved. Walton spent the rest of the night at the end of Row 7 in Section 104. I'm sure Luke's seat was just fine. As would Kerr's have been if he'd stayed put.
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