Snoop Dogg Insulted Me Courtside At The Celtics-Lakers Game Last Night

You guys know Brian Scalabrine, right? He played for the Celtics back in the late 2000s. He wasn’t great, but he sure was fun.

Brian Scalabrine is also a proper ginger. He is a thoroughbred, Titanic life vest, cottage cheese-in-cantaloupe ginger. The sort of guy from whom, if you passed him on the street, you might shield a child’s eyes. He is human Halloween. Nobody would confuse him for a strawberry blonde, nor will time quiet his roaring mane with streaks of grey. His skin might age like a nerf football at a dog shelter, but his hair will protect him during hunting season until the day he croaks. He is pure.

Back when the Celtics were making championship appearances on the backs of Pierce, Garnett, Allen, and Rondo, Scalabrine became the spirit animal for the Celtics. This was also the era I recall most fondly from my life as a Celtics fan. I was in college nearby (WINK, LOL) and the Celtics went to two championships against Kobe’s Lakers, winning one and losing the other thanks to UFC legend Ron Artest. Whenever I went to a game, the Garden would press Doc Rivers to put Scal in with rousing chants of Scalabrine… Scalabrine... especially if he was wearing street clothes. Boy, he wore street clothes a lot. I never knew if he was injured or just asked to cover up more.

During blowouts and on nights when the moon was covered by clouds, he’d play. He always looked like a dad from some local men’s league, thrust onto the NBA hardwood, trying to avoid the humiliating posterization where the dunker’s balls pancake the face of some fundamentals-driven shmuck dutifully taking a charge. You know that face—like a baby tasting a lemon? Except instead of a lemon, it’s ball squirt pouring through mesh shorts. I still don’t understand why white NBA players insist on taking charges. Is that written into their contract? “By signing, you agree to stand in the paint, with your Asics planted, as the world’s most athletic humans treat you as a hurdle. In exchange, the Dallas Mavericks organization agrees to write a glowing letter of recommendation to the government of Israel, Germany, China, or wherever else you end up playing in six months.”

Scalabrine seemed to be in on the joke, and that made us love him more. It certainly helped that he looked like the mascot of the team he played for. And perhaps he reminded us of Boston’s favorite son, Larry Bird—a stiff-legged white guy with a vertical shorter than his penis who defied science to become one of the greatest players of all time. Whatever it was, Brian Scalabrine was equal parts St. Patrick’s Day parade and July creamsicle left on the dashboard of a black Pathfinder. And those ingredients make for one tasty, pasty legend.

So it was with mixed feelings that I processed Snoop Dogg’s appraisal of me last night at the Celtics game. “You look like Brian Scalabrine,” quipped Snoop as he flashed dual peace signs, suggesting that he wants us to double our efforts towards peace.

My mom and dad lucked into two courtside seats as a gift from a friend. I’ve been going to Celtics games my whole life, but I’ve never sat courtside for any sporting event, let alone a Celtics game, let alone Celtics vs. Lebron. In the weeks leading up to the game, I gently applied enough guilt to weasel my way into a three-way timeshare of the seats. We bought a third ticket about 40 rows back, but near enough that we could swap seats at the end of each quarter. My wonderful parents gave me the floor for quarters 1, 2, and 4. And as it turned out, our seats could not have been better.

We see so many pictures of celebrities sitting courtside at the Knicks and Lakers games. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to rub shoulders with some celebs as we found our seats, and boy did I hit the motherlode. Sitting three seats to my left, David Ortiz. Six seats to my right, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Ty Law. And somehow (this was strange), when Big Papi left the game at halftime, UFC President Dana White took over the seats for the second half. This motley crew was seated within easy earshot of me, which was strange because they had trouble hearing me when I said “Hey guys! Hey Snoop! Hey Warren! Regulators, am I right? Should we pour one out for Nate Dogg? The mop kid will get it for us I bet. Papi, remember when that guy shot you? I got hit with a paintball once and I’m sure you’d agree—it stings! I had to turn the temperature of my showers down for like a week, ugh. But then I turned it up again.”

They’re all big basketball fans though. I bet they were focusing on the game.

 

Let me tell you about Big Papi’s fingernails.

David Ortiz’s nail game is awe-inspiring. Do you see that sheen, that gloss? Papi’s nails look like the sort of surface that George Clooney hopes to find on Lake Como for a waterski. I’d bet he knows some intricate shadow puppets. At one point, I saw my reflection off his scrapers and understood why so many women get botox—I never wanted to see my face any other way for the rest of my life.

As for the game itself, the first half was pretty great, but then the Celtics blew the Lakers out. The starters were pulled for most of the fourth quarter. Still, watching Lebron James play basketball from that proximity was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill.

I know people hate Lebron, but I really don’t give a shit—I revere him as a basketball player. I was sold the night I stayed up late to watch him score the Cavs last 25 points by himself against the Pistons in Game 5 of the 2007 ECF (interesting footnote: that game went to double overtime and the Cavs won 109-107. Today, that’s a low-scoring game in regulation.) I didn’t care about the Miami announcement, nor do I care about “load management” complaints or his wine preferences. These are foibles that pale next to his Finals performances against the Warriors. To me, he’s quite simply the most remarkable athlete of my adult life. I was too young to truly appreciate Jordan live.

I can’t stop thinking about a back scratch from David Ortiz.

Lebron still finished with 15 points, 13 rebounds, and 7 assists in 29 minutes. It was a forgettable game just a few Russell Westbrook “gimme that!” rebounds away from a triple double. The highlight of the night was a Jaylen Brown dunk over Lebron that occurred while I was forty rows away, trying and failing to staunch the blood hemorrhaging from my nostrils at that altitude.

But watching Lebron quarterback an offense, at this point in his career, is truly amazing. He’s been at this for 16 years and it’s as though the game has slowed down to satisfy his pace. Trapped on the baseline with no dribble? Let’s try the 25-foot, no-look backhand pass to Danny Green in the corner for three. Or he’ll dump it into the paint to Anthony Davis from two dribbles off his own baseline—a fifty-foot lob pass that Davis has no problem corralling and converting. Lebron is built like a brick shithouse and whatever he wants to do, wherever he wants to go, it happens. It’s fucking cool to see from 10 feet away.

Thanks to my parents, the Celtics, and David Ortiz’s nail salon for a night I’ll never forget. And Snoop? I changed my mind: thanks for the compliment.