Hollywood royalty Jack Nicholson, Billy Crystal and Spike Lee set to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame

Los Angeles Lakers fan Jack Nicholson, Clippers supporter Billy Crystal and New York Knicks diehard Spike Lee are heading from Hollywood to the Hall of Fame.

Along with businessman Alan Horwitz, they will be added to the James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, just hours before this year’s class is set to be recorded in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Named after Goldstein, one of the NBA’s best-known non-playing faces who attends some 100 games a year, the gallery recognizes fans for their knowledge and passion for basketball, along with their reputation within the basketball community and their appreciation for history of the basketball world. sport.

In addition to Goldstein, the gallery, founded in 2018, also includes the late Penny Marshall — another voracious Lakers supporter — and Raptors fan Nav Bhatia, a 73-year-old Indian man who has become a fixture at the Scotiabank Arena

Of course, Hollywood’s affinity for NBA front-row seats is nothing new.

“Growing up, the man I watched was Jack Nicholson,” Lee said. “As I sat in the blue chairs in the Garden, I said, ‘Hopefully one day I can sit courtside like my husband Jack Nicholson.’

Lee eventually made it to the front row to watch his beloved Knicks. And this weekend, he and Nicholson will enter basketball’s Hall of Fame together.

Celebrities are just fans with better seats

They’re more famous than most, but essentially they’re just like the customers who sit high on the cheap seats.

“I’m just representing all the dedicated fans of the game we love,” said Crystal, a longtime Clippers ticket holder whose love for the team dates back to when they played in San Diego.

Plus, for the most die-hard fans, it’s never about where they sit. It’s about having them in the building when their team needs them most.

For Lee, that was May 8, 1970. When he was 13 years old, he missed his father’s concert after receiving an offer to attend Game 7 of the NBA Finals. He wasn’t close, but still had a great view of seeing Willis Reed walk onto the court with his injured leg, which would have forced him to miss Game 6 against the Lakers and left his availability for the decider in doubt.

“I’ve been to the World Series, World Cup, Super Bowls and Olympics,” Lee said. “That’s the loudest sound I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Billy Crystal has had a ‘rough’ time in LA as a Clippers fan

The Knicks won that title and added another in 1973, but have only come close a few times since Lee became a ticket holder after drafting Patrick Ewing with the No. 1 pick in 1985. Horwitz’s Philadelphia 76ers are also still stuck in a prolonged drought. , though they’re still nothing like the Clippers, who are still waiting for their first chance to deliver for Crystal.

“He suffered too,” Lee said. “What makes it worse is that he’s in LA and was with the Clippers all those years when the Lakers had Magic, Shaq and Kobe. Oh man, that was really tough.”

Nicholson was on the right side of the Los Angeles rivalry after becoming a Lakers ticket holder in the 1970s. The three-time Academy Award-winning actor adjusted his shooting schedules and in-person meetings so that he could sit next to the visitors’ bench with his sunglasses on at big Lakers games.

From there, he watched the Lakers blow a 24-point lead against Boston in Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals — a defeat that Nicholson saw coming as the Celtics rallied.

“It was late in the game and I kept hearing, ‘Hey Doc, we’re dead men,’” said Doc Rivers, the Celtics coach at the time. “And he kept saying it. I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about and found out late when we came back and won the game.”

The two would become friends when Rivers later coached the Clippers, and the Lakers’ most famous fan even got to see the other side when they faced the Houston Rockets in the 2015 playoffs.

“Jack came to that game,” Rivers said. “We showed up at a Clippers game and then we blew one [huge] led and he left and I don’t think he’ll ever play another Clipper game again.”

Now 87, Nicholson is no longer attending the Lakers and is the only one of the four new superfans not expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony.

Spike Lee on Hall of Fame honor: ‘Who would have thought?’

Lee is still a regular at Madison Square Garden and now wears a Jalen Brunson jersey that once belonged to John Starks. The Hall of Fame honor is important to him, he said, because of the close bond he developed with many NBA players during his film career, from Air Jordan commercials with Michael Jordan to films like “He Got Game.”

“I know these guys and especially the visiting teams, a lot of these guys, they come on the field and they come and say hi to me,” Lee said, chuckling about how many times Jordan profanely told him to sit down. “They give me five, give me a hug – and these are the opponents.”

Sometimes those interactions backfire and Lee bears the blame for the Knicks loss. He was accused of egging on Reggie Miller in the playoffs as Indiana came back for a Game 5 victory. When Kobe Bryant poured in an opponent-record 61 points on February 2, 2009, he was motivated by not letting Lee talk if the Knicks won when they met later that night for a project they were working on.

Lee has a stat sheet from the game signed by Bryant, who wrote, “Spike, this (expletive) was your fault!!!!”

Now he will join Jordan, Bryant and many other greats in the Hall of Fame.

“To resort to some Brooklyn slang,” Lee said, “who would have thought?”