James Goldstein, ’62, has sat courtside at an estimated 5,000 NBA games. He witnessed Miami Heat shooting guard Ray Allen’s iconic three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals. He even sat in on practices as the Houston Rockets developed into the 1994 and 1995 championship teams. Basketball, in turn, is a fan of his. In 2018, the room devoted to fandom at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. was named for him: the James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery.
While Goldstein played basketball as a kid, he found his passion for a close-up view of the action at age 15 as a volunteer statistician for the Milwaukee (now Atlanta) Hawks. “Sitting courtside, I almost feel that I am in the game,” he says. His six decades of superfandom have led to friendships with players and coaches off the court. In 2023, Goldstein had the entire Milwaukee Bucks team over for dinner at his Los Angeles mansion. On another occasion, he even posted up against NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo (above) in a pickup game. As to his superfan lifestyle? “I have no intentions of slowing down,” he says.
Karis Chen, ’28, is an editorial intern at Stanford. Email her at stanford.magazine@stanford.edu.
