After taking a look at some arenas of the NHL’s past that I missed out on, here are three former NBA arenas I would have loved to see a game in.
Although I’m certainly a fan of all of the North American professional sports, my experience with watching games live varies wildly from sport-to-sport.
Baseball was the first sport I was introduced to as a kid, and it’s remained my favorite sport throughout my entire life. Many of my first experiences of attending live sporting events were at Cubs and White Sox games in Chicago, with an at-home subscription to MLB Extra Innings solidifying the obsession.
Ice hockey didn’t follow too far behind, with my interest first being piqued during the 2002 Winter Olympics and that year’s Stanley Cup Final – though my fascination with the sport took a years-long hiatus during my childhood, owing to the 2004-05 NHL lockout that wiped out an entire season.
As for the NFL and NBA, both leagues were simply an afterthought for the first part of my childhood, as I was both engrossed in baseball and video games while my father, who primarily got me into sports, didn’t care all that much about football and basketball.
While I developed the fandoms on my own by the time I got to middle school, soaking in morning watches of SportsCenter to get a grasp of the basics, it would still be another decade until I personally got to an NBA game.
As for football, I still have yet to attend an NFL game – declining my lone opportunity to do so in December 2016 for a Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers game in arctic conditions. With the Bears finishing 3-13 that season, that was an easy one to say no to.
My basketball fandom was in many ways, quite convenient. While I grew up on Chicago teams as a native of the area, my dad always had a soft spot for Boston sports, thanks to him living in the Boston-area for a year while he was in high school. Although my dad was never really one for basketball, 11-year-old me used this as the perfect reason to become a Boston Celtics fan, of course coinciding with the Big Three’s run to the championship in 2007-08.
I’ve been a Celtics fan since then, with them being my team for as long as I’ve been into basketball – a dynamic that was quite fun to take in during seventh grade when the Celtics took on the Bulls in a riveting first-round series that is still talked about in basketball circles to this day.
Though the opportunity wouldn’t arise for quite a bit, I finally made my way to my first NBA game in January 2017, purchasing a standing room only ticket to watch the Bulls take on the Oklahoma City Thunder in what was Russell Westbrook’s MVP campaign.
Since then, I’ve attended a good handful of NBA games across nine different arenas, most recently crossing off the nearby Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, as I’m now located in Northern California.
Yet looking into league history, there’s a few venues that I think would have been incredible to see a game in, ranging from some of the sport’s most historic buildings to one “arena” I’d have to think many have forgotten about.
While I yearn to eventually see a game in all 30 active NBA arenas, here’s a look at three from the past I would have loved to have gotten a chance to experience:
Boston Garden – Boston Celtics (1946-1995)
Arguably the most historic building in NBA history, this was an absolute no-brainer to include, especially as a Celtics fan.
Serving as the longtime home of the Celtics (and NHL’s Boston Bruins), the Boston Garden hosted all but two of the Celtics’ NBA-record 18 championships, with many of the sport’s most recognizable players spending much of their career trotting up and down the arena’s iconic parquet floor.
Known for its tightly-packed, steamy environment, the Boston Garden had a capacity of just 14,890 fans for basketball games, over 4,000 fewer fans than the current capacity of TD Garden, where the Celtics have played their home games since the 1995-96 season.
The Garden was also known for its lack of air conditioning, causing fog to form during Bruins’ playoff games when temperatures were warmer, while also creating downright scorching conditions in NBA playoff games. This came to a head during Game 5 of the 1984 NBA Finals, when temperatures reached as high as 97 degrees Fahrenheit in the building, leading to some Lakers using oxygen tanks on the sidelines.
While the Boston Garden clearly ran its course as an NBA and NHL arena, it evokes an aura of a league distinctly in the past, similar to the way the defunct Chicago Stadium does for fans of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks.
Kia Forum – Los Angeles Lakers (1967-1999)
An interesting case and inclusion, the Kia Forum is the current name of the venue that still very much so exists – it just hasn’t hosted professional sports in over a quarter-century.
Known as the longtime home of the Lakers and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, what was then known as the Great Western Forum or just “The Forum” served as a palace for the sport as the Lakers developed into one of the most recognizable franchises in all of professional sports.
Located just outside Los Angeles in suburban Inglewood, The Forum turned from purely a concert hotspot into a mecca for sports, coinciding with the arrival of the Showtime Lakers and later, Wayne Gretzky’s addition to the Kings.
Beyond the incredible product that was on the floor for many years at The Forum, it’s hard to think of many other arenas that have as grandiose of an appearance and evoke a level of significance not often felt in other venues. The building’s iconic circular shape and column-filled facade have grown to become synonymous with West Coast excellence, even as the Lakers and Kings have called Crypto.com Arena home since 1999.
The venue’s reputation remains to this day as the Kia Forum, continuing to host concerts of high-profile acts such as Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles and Billie Eilish. The arena garnered headlines in the summer of 2024 for hosting “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends,” widely seen as an emphatic victory lap for hip-hop superstar Kendrick Lamar in his highly publicized feud with Drake.
SkyDome – Toronto Raptors (1995-1999)
While it feels strange that two of the three arenas on this list are not only still standing but still in use, it was hard to ignore the role that the SkyDome, now known as the Rogers Centre, played for the Toronto Raptors after the franchise’s inception in 1995.
Though the stadium has undergone several renovations and has served as the home of MLB’s Toronto Blue Jays since 1989, the Raptors used the multi-purpose stadium as their primary home for the first four seasons of team history.
While the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs continued to play in the historic Maple Leaf Gardens until 1999, the Raptors only played six home games at the venue in their first four seasons, primarily occurring when the SkyDome was unavailable.
This created an unusually cavernous basketball environment for the Raptors, with every home game feeling like an NCAA Final Four game without the associated crowd energy.
While this setup persists to this day in college athletics with the Syracuse Orange using the JMA Wireless Dome for both football and basketball games, it seems exceptionally odd for a professional sports team to use the configuration on a regular basis.
The result was a bizarre setup that included makeshift bleachers constructed on three ends of the court, with fans able to sit in the stadium’s regular seating and upper deck on the lone remaining side. The capacity for most games was 22,900, though capacity was expanded when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls visited, with as many as 36,000 fans attending a basketball game in the venue.
The Raptors went on to move to what is now Scotiabank Arena in 1999, sharing the venue with the Maple Leafs.
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