For the first time since agreeing to continue his career in Los Angeles, LeBron James was going to walk through the door in front of reporters and cameras as a Laker.
The simple act — one man walking through a doorway — caused the room to fall almost entirely silent. Everyone reached for their phones to get that first shot.
About 5.3 miles north, the Clippers introduced their team to a quiet room too — there weren’t that many people there to make noise. Instead of a crowd of hundreds, it was dozens. The free food that normally gets snatched up by the hungry press corps started to go cold on a table in the back.