Wait, There’s A Basketball Game, Too?
For those that want to be seen without all the hassle of a basketball game, we have just the place for you. If you think you can get in.
The Lounge
The Lounge in Oakland has plenty of room to have a good time.
For many celebrities and Hollywood hangers on, Lakers games were already more about being seen than hoops. Now, having seats near the court (and not looking up at the game from your Blackberry) is not enough.
Now, you need to get into Hyde.
As in the new Hyde club inside Staples Center at Lakers games. The sister spot to the trendy Hollywood club on Sunset, believe it or not this one may be harder to get into. Basically, if you have to ask how to get a wristband to get in, you can watch from outside the velvet ropes.
Inside the velvet ropes, the beautiful and powerful drink Cristal or $400 a bottle vodka (if they get the cheap stuff, you can spend up to $10,000) and work to be seen — and, of course, spend some time staring at their iPhones.
Basketball? Sure, you could theoretically see it if you turned around and looked out the glass from the Suite-level club. You’d have about the same view the real fans in the 300 level seats do. But nobody goes to Hyde looking to see if Kobe is getting that elbow jumper he likes.
On one level, this feels like a throwback to the legendry Forum Club in the 1980s. When Magic was running Showtime, getting into the Forum Club (in the Fabulous Forum) was THE ticket in Los Angeles. Everybody who was anybody went, during and after Lakers games, and Lakers players were a fairly common sight (after they had showered, one would hope).
The current Lakers? Club-loving Lamar Odom, celebrating his 30th birthday the night the club opened, said after the Lakers beat the Grizzlies he would rather go home and have a quiet dinner with his new wife (Khloe Kardashian, who has been to a club or two herself over the years). He’s not in his 20s anymore, he added.
You’re also not going to see Jack Nicholson or Denzel Washington or the other celebrities that really love basketball up at Hyde either. But if the first night was any evidence, there are plenty of people who would prefer to focus on the music and the opposite sex more than basketball.
And if the Lakers keep winning, there will be more and more of that group of people coming to games as the season moves on. Now they can go off and Hyde.
Kurt Helin lives in Los Angeles where he is runs the NBA/Lakers blog Forum Blue & Gold (which you can also follow in twitter).
