Warriors 119 – Knicks 125
Tonight was also another game with a player coming off the bench for Golden Season. My original guest was to be Kate H. but due to a last minute family trip to Tokyo, Japan, how can I blame her for missing tonights game.
Kate picked the Knicks because she grew up in New York before her entire family moved west to Moraga. However, even without the ‘born and raised’ influence in her decision, she’s a perfect fit for the Knicks game because of her love for everything New York offers. From fashion, food, music, sports and theater and her knowledge of all those things, I’m a little surprised she’s not living in Empire State right now.
It might be quite possible Kate loves New York so much that she not only picked the Knicks game, but has also been dating Nick R. since college. Coincidence? I’m not so sure.
Actually yes…because Nick’s a great guy I’ve known for a few years now and when Kate suggested he go in her place, it was as good as already done.
I’ve worked with Kate for 3 and a half years now and met Nick almost immediately. What’s great is that just around a year ago Nick finished his program at the Academy of Art and is now also at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as a Creative Coordinator.
Nick is one of the most mellow guys I know and just genuinely kind. I’ve never seen him upset and his desk at work has to be one of the most organized workspaces I’ve ever seen. This says everything anyone needs to know about him really.
He’s an observer. He’s a listener. He pays attention to detail.
The Commute
At 5:30pm I headed up to meet Nick at his desk. Upon entering his area is a ‘bullpen’ of the future of advertising. Nick sits in an area where some my company’s great young talent is pounding out work and forging their way within our building and eventually beyond.
They don’t know it but it’s one of my favorite places in the building because they all are what I feel represents the best of our industry and remind me of why I got into it in the first place. The optimism, collaboration, hard work and sheer creative risk taking is contagious and inspiring… and in my own opinion, exactly what my agency needs right now.
So after chatting with my homies in the Creative Coordinator Bullpen, I snatched Nick and we made our way down to BART. It was forecasted to rain so we brought our umbrellas. Mine was a cheap 5 dollar Chinatown umbrella that I negotiated down to 1.50 and Nick’s was a nice compact one that looked like he could probably hide it up his sleeve and shoot out like Wolverine’s claws… very Nick.
Nick and I had a lot of catching up to do. I haven’t really hung out with him or Kate in a long while, and even though we kind of fell out of hanging out, they both were there during a really critical time for me last year when my ex had ran out on me. The two of them together are some of the nicest people and if you ever have the opportunity to meet either of them, consider yourself blessed.
I’ve never really hung out with Nick one-on-one, so tonight’s game was a great opportunity to finally just get to know him better.
We get right into the key questions that define us… ‘How are you parents?’ ‘Are they still living in Idaho?’ ‘How’s your car?’ etc. All these sound like fluff conversation, but the reality of what I’ve learned with Golden Season is that the ‘fluff’ questions are quite significant.
Because if you take all of those questions and roll them into one monster of a question, what you have is an incredible snapshot of who someone is. Obviously the refinement of understanding someone comes over time but snapshots are always telling.
So I continued to cruise through ‘snapshots’ on the ride over to BART. And as I was asking Nick questions about he and Kate’s relationship and their future plans, my thoughts of growing up and getting older feel less and less weird.
Nick and Kate have been together since college now and have lived in the same SF apartment for the past five years. They have a dog, a strong relationship and keen understanding of what each other wants. At 27, there is clearly no rush for either of them, but with a confident nod to their relationship, Nick hinted that a even deeper showing of his commitment to Kate is of corse going to come.
It’s hard not to think about theses things myself as Nick and I are the same age and are quite similar as people in terms of what we want out of life and how we approach things.
By just being him, Nick held up a mirror to a lot of things I’ve been questioning and his confident and quiet approach to my inquisitiveness breeds the same states of being in me.
The Game
As we exited the BART and made our way to the arena, we immediately popped open our umbrellas.
We faced the worst kind of rain… sideways rain.
I love taking BART to the games, but weather puts a damper on that small portion from BART to the Plaza.
The location of my seats are great. Aside from the location of the actual seats to the court, the location relative to the arena itself is convenient. As we were from the usual entrance that I always go through, Nick was looking for an ATM and boomtime… there to the right, Team Store underneath, Adidas store to the left and almost every concession you can think of directly behind my section.
As down as I was initially on the seats, I’ve really come to love them.
As soon as we grabbed beer and some food we headed to my seats and shortly there after, Golden Season reader/supporter and fellow Warriors faithful texted me that she was on her way in.
Katherine has so far been the biggest surprise of Golden Season. She started following me on twitter, we continued our conversations for a bit and just like that the power of social media was bringing fans together.
As soon as she got settled I ran over a couple sections to say hi to her and her son Joey. This is how hardcore they are… Joey had his hair died blue and yellow… props man.. PROPS.
So after a nice heart-to-heart, fan-to-fan… I headed back after abandoning Nick for a quick second.
Tonight’s game marks the first of something cool that the Warriors have forged with Facebook. We checked into tonight’s game via facebook and received a deal for a player meet and greet after the game. Super smart in spreading the Warriors conversation beyond the arena.
Nick and I both checked in and got vouchers for the post-game meet and greet.
Tonight was also Filipino Heritage Night and it was great to see people come out strong and proud.
What I’m realizing is that people want to be proud of things and will rep hard when they’re done right by it.
Giants won the World Series and people are still rocking gear at dub games. At every heritage night so far people emblazon themselves with their countries colors and flags, and the Warriors… we all STILL believe and with the new look people are dawning more dubs gear than I can remember from recent memory… or maybe it’s because going back to the original colors pops so much more.
Nick really has no allegiance to a hoops team right now. The closest thing we talked about is Portland because of the time he spent living up there, but he’s been so far removed and so close (geographically) to the Warriors I knew that he’d be a fan by the end of it.
The Warriors put on a great show per usual. And although we struggled through the game due to injuries, it was still one hell of a game. If it’s one thing that everyone can say about the Warriors is that although we may not win them all, the vast majority of games, even those we lose are exciting and entertaining.
I thought the loss would deter Nick a bit from becoming a fan, but there were moments through the night I saw that he got lost in the game and the thrill of being at the arena.
I could tell Nick wants to be proud of the Warriors and was clearly rooting for them. As our Warriors kept the game close the entire time, I could tell that Nick appreciated that our boys did not stop playing their hearts out. Monta came through with 40 in an amazing effort and when someone plays that well, you wish they could have gotten the W.
The crowds filled out as the clock winded down and it was clear that we couldn’t pull out the win tonight. Nick and I stayed behind to take a photo by the court and we headed back to San Francisco on BART. We were to meet up at a McKay and Kirisa’s birthday afterword. I went but Nick opted out because he had to get back and check in on the dog. I’m sure Holden would have been okay if Nick was out for a few more hours, but again, this is Nick so I didn’t push him.
He’s a guy that pays attention to detail. He’s not loud our pompous, he just infallibly does what is right all the time. He’s a guy that I’m proud to call a friend and proud to know. Tonight’s game really made me think as to why I don’t hang out with Nick more. Hanging with him is the definition of how we can all be better people by keeping great ones around you.
I’ll be keeping Nick close from here on out and I’m really appreciative he took the time to come to a game in place of Kate. Kate is of course irreplaceable, but having Nick there was just like having her there and in lots of way, getting to know Nick better makes me also feel like I know Kate better.
We parted ways and I headed to meet up the party trolley in SoMa, and I got a text from Nick…
“Thanks for everything man. You made a Warriors fan outta me.”
…a proud moment, of which a night with the Warriors forever made a significant mark on our friendship.
-Nam
More photos from tonight’s game:
