By Hillel Kuttler, Special to JTNews
The National Basketball Association season’s delayed start not only cost every team 16 games from the schedule, it also is breaking the six-year Latkepalooza attendance streak of Renton native Daniel Shapiro.
The Sacramento Kings’ strength and conditioning coach will have to remain in California to prepare for his team’s Monday morning practice and season opener that evening against the Philadelphia 76ers.
The condensed pre-season training camp worked against Shapiro’s plan to come home this weekend. He had hoped to continue his December 24th tradition of slipping back into town for a quick visit to attend the annual JConnect–Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle bash that brings together the city’s young Jewish singles. The event will be held at the Baltic Room on Capitol Hill beginning at 9:30 Saturday night.
Since 1998, when he turned 21, Shapiro has attended the extravaganza every year except 2003 and 2004, when he lived in Ohio and worked for the University of Dayton.
During his seven-year tenure with the Kings, Shapiro, 34, has always had a day or two off for Christmas, enabling him to jet in to attend Latkepalooza and, in one fell swoop, catch up with friends he’s known since his Hebrew school, synagogue and summer camp days.
“It’s the one night a year that, if you’re single and Jewish, you’ll most likely be there,” Shapiro said by telephone Tuesday afternoon from the Kings’ practice facility. “It’s a chance to see some of my old friends. It’s something to do because there’s nothing open Christmas Eve.”
The NBA’s demographics and travel demands make meeting Jews difficult during the season, so every Jewish social opportunity is treasured, said Shapiro, who worked for the team formerly known as the Seattle Sonics while still in college.
“Because of the field I’m in and the life I’m in, I’m not surrounded by many Jewish friends. I appreciate the bonds I have with my Jewish friends [going back to] the Bar Mitzvah years,” he said. “We stayed tight, and when we get together, it’s like no time has passed.
Shapiro had looked forward to catching up with his closest buddies, Joel Feldman, who works for the Stroum Jewish Community Center; Daniel Kezner, a restaurant general manager; and Paul Azous, an author and entrepreneur.
Had the NBA lockout remained in effect, Shapiro said, “I’d be [at Latkepalooza] for sure: To be with my brother and to see my friends who show up.”
The event benefited the two Shapiros’ romantic lives. Daniel, who remains single, dated a woman for four months whom he met at the 2002 gathering. His brother Elan met his future wife Emily there in 2005, and the two were married last year. The couple remembered each other as co-counselors at Olympia’s Camp Solomon Schechter.
Latkepalooza has been “very good for the Shapiro boys!” Daniel Shapiro remarked. He estimated that the brothers went there together 10 to 12 times.
Shapiro spent much of this past off-season helping to care for Andrew Moritz, a good friend from his youth who died last month of cancer. Shapiro flew back to Seattle six times for that purpose alone, including one six-week stay.
The new season will be trying in another sense, given the Kings’ trade last summer of forward Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA and one of only two Jewish players (with New Jersey’s Jordan Farmar) now in the league.
Shapiro and Casspi, who now plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, enjoyed hanging around together, including attending synagogue services, celebrating Jewish holidays, and sharing meals at home and on the road. Because of the lockout rules that forbade team officials from having any contact with players, Shapiro and Casspi were incommunicado until the new labor deal was ratified earlier this month.
“It definitely was a plus having someone — the only time in my 16 years in this business — who’s Jewish on the team,” Shapiro said of Casspi. “Tonight, we would have lit the hanukkiyah together.… Of course, I miss having him around. We call each other ‘the Jewish brother from another mother.’”
Hillel Kuttler is a freelance writer and editor. He can be reached at hk@hillelthescribecommunications.com.