Before LeBron James got announced to the roar of a home crowd for the first time as a Laker on Saturday night, the man with more points than anyone ever to play in the NBA walked down the aisle between the first and second rows to his seat.
Phones were in the air, snapping photos and filming videos as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar strolled by, but hardly anyone was thinking about the 38,387 points he scored in his career. No, the Lakers fans at Staples Center were more peeved with the big man’s most recent block.
Even though Abdul-Jabbar is immortalized in a statue outside of Staples Center, he was just a large, moving barrier between those cellphones and LeBron James, who was on the court, merely warming up.