There was a brief time, decades ago when it was new to the Oakland cityscape, that people occasionally referred to it as the Jewel Box. But the nickname didn’t stick, probably because it was too flashy for a building that didn’t stand out or call attention to itself. It was, after all, a huge but otherwise unremarkable circle of concrete and glass when viewed from the outside, about as charming as your typical office building.



Its official name, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, wasn’t exactly catchy, either, and though that eventually changed, to the simpler Oracle Arena, the building’s essential nature never did. Oracle has always been a fairly plain backdrop, a canvas upon which its many tenants have painted every type of picture imaginable. It has been home to minor sports and major ones, to comically awful teams and awesomely skilled ones. The great performance and gimmicky promotion have always been equally welcome at Oracle. In roughly...