NBA star James Donaldson stands tall and bares all in run for Seattle mayor

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From the article...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/may/28/nba-star-james-donaldson-stands-tall-and-bares-all-in-run-for-seattle-mayor

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The tallest mayoral candidate in Seattle history, 7ft 2in James Donaldson, backs a beat-up Saturn SUV into an angled parking spot in the cacophonous neighborhood of Georgetown, where modest homes and a row of restaurants share space with a massive airstrip, multiple sets of railroad tracks and a freeway entrance ramp. Planes, trains and automobiles – the urban symphony.

“Georgetown is the noisiest neighborhood,” says the 63-year-old Donaldson after sitting down at an outdoor table at All City Coffee, clad in sport sandals, khaki shorts and a gray Washington State University sweatshirt.

 

Donaldson, a military brat who was born in England, played basketball at WSU, and started his 14-year NBA career in 1980 on the other side of the state with the now-defunct Seattle Supersonics. (After a dubious hijacking by a shifty crew of Dust Bowl oilmen, they are now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder.) For Donaldson, who holds the NBA record for most games played (957) without ever attempting a three-point shot, squeezing into a normal-sized human’s chair is like a normal-sized human squeezing into a kindergartener’s chair. His demeanor is cerebral and soothing; if he could get paid to read people to sleep, Donaldson would make top dollar. As for the Saturn, he had to have the seat moved back, which is par for the course for any vehicle he’s ever driven.

This is Donaldson’s second run for mayor of Seattle, a city which seems to lurch further leftward with every passing year. The first time he ran, in 2009, he finished a disappointing fourth and failed to emerge from the primary election. But still, life was good. He was a well-respected businessman, with six physical therapy clinics and a side venture that saw him traveling to China, where he met his wife and her son. He owned a home in a nice neighborhood and served on the board of directors for the National Basketball Retired Players Association.

“I had lived a very charmed life,” he says. “I had no problems, no issues.”

But then, one day in 2015, “the whole table went upside down”...