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Atlanta, Georgia It is early on a game day. A double-game day, in fact. As we burrow our way through the vast and unfriendly catacombs beneath the Los Angeles Staples Center, searching for our designated hole, meager noise begins to come from the court in the center of it all. (Odd, I would imagine, for those who enter an arena such as this the normal way, that is to say from the street, through the front doors, to think there is such a labyrinth beneath. Put one of your wife's finest china plates over an ant farm, for instance.) We are told we have a room set aside for our interviews. When we arrive at the door to that room, there is noise coming from inside. A team of some sort, large men in unfamiliar uniforms, is sitting in a circle discussing whatever it is they discuss before starting for the door. "Our room, number six?" we say to the red-jacket at the door with the earpiece and the puzzled look. "Yeah, six," he says, "but the D-Fenders are in there now." D-Fenders. And they are? "Playing the 14ers right now," he says. "But…" He quickly gets on his two-way, something garbled about TV people here and a room and help.  The author flew across the country and waited all day for Kareem - and regretted not a second. As the D-Fenders stalk out into the tunnel and head right toward the court, another red-jacket with much more authority arrives to take us to our promised land. Around a corner, down a hallway not quite all the way to the showers, a room the size of Kobe's backup closet is opened. And of all the rooms that encircle the guts of that arena, chapels, locker rooms, equipment rooms, meeting rooms, this is where they choose for us to sit Kareem Abdul-Jabbar down to talk of what was 20 years ago and what is today. With the NBA All-Star Game set for Las Vegas this year, it seemed only smart to recall that night in 1984 there at the Thomas and Mack when Kareem broke the all-time NBA scoring record. That of course was then. His daily coaching work with the brilliant young Lakers center Andrew Bynum is now. That is, of course, the plan. Executing it is always so much more difficult in this business. You can't just walk in, sit down and chat. You have to acquire a room, and that room must be quiet. That a team called the D-Fenders, who play under the Lakers' thumb in the Developmental League, would be on the other side of this room's door, shouting, cursing, praying, receiving first rites, all the while…well, we would just have to work with it. We arrive at two in the afternoon. After a fair amount of haggling, mostly one-sided, we take over the closet and begin to dress it for television. Screens, lights, cameras, chairs, wires everywhere. "Ah…" I say, midway, as I stick my head carefully in the door, "remember the length of the parties' legs." "Oh yeah, let's move those chairs back a couple feet." "We ain't got a couple feet." "So, I'll side-saddle, if I have to, okay." It is 3:30. Kareem, we were told, could be there for you any time between three and, well, whenever. Be ready. So we were. The D-Fenders have a 16-point lead coming in at halftime. This crew from Colorado called the 14ers (and one only imagines that, upon development, they will work their way slowly, very slowly, to becoming 49ers. Maybe 50ers) seem overmatched.
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