My Next Chapter: A goodbye to Silver Screen and Roll

You guys didn’t really think my last post here was going to be about Brook Lopez’s #NBARank, did you? I would never go out like that. This blog has meant too much to me, and if you’ll indulge me doing the obnoxious first-person thing for a minute, I’d like to say goodbye to this wonderful site.

When I started at Silver Screen and Roll, I never thought I’d be there over five years. I never thought I’d even be a writer in any capacity. I was just looking for a sense of community with a blog I’d read obsessively every single day.

That love for Silver Screen and Roll and the friends I’ve made in my time here are what make leaving so hard, but that is what I’m doing today.

I’ve officially accepted the position of senior writer at Lakers Nation and will officially begin in October, an exciting proposition even if it’s bittersweet because it means leaving the main writing home I’ve known for the last five years.

My first day at SS&R was aggregating links for a “The Credits” post the day Dwight Howard left, and the team only got worse from there. I’ve seen the worst Lakers teams of all-time during my time here, and all that horrific basketball is honestly probably what granted me my opportunity to write here in the first place.

Basically, I should thank the Lakers for a chance to get in on the ground floor.

Like I said before, writing was never my plan. I only wanted to chip in because, well, I wasn’t doing anything else. While dealing with chronic (and at the time, undiagnosed) back pain along with very diagnosed mental health issues that had forced me to drop out of school and my loss of love for finishing out my psychology major not tempting me to go back, I was just wasting my life away. The chance to do “The Credits” seemed awesome because it would get me out of that rut and slightly back into the world at a time when my back left me barely able to leave the house.

After doing “The Credits” for a while, I wanted to get paid. Our wonderful editor and comment moderator SoCalGal was nice enough to not laugh at my naive request for money for simply putting links into a list, and instead recommended I give writing a shot.

Early on, The Great Mambino and Ben Rosales were kind enough to do the brain surgery necessary to make my work readable while supporting my growing passion for writing. Eventually, conversations with Drew Garrison led me to write more and more as medication and physical therapy allowed my back to improve to the level where I could sit at a PC, and the feedback of those wonderful editors allowed my writing to get to the point that wouldn’t drive you all away (this self-indulgent post aside).

Before too long, I was credentialed for my first Las Vegas Summer League, an opportunity that left me wanting to go into journalism. A few months later I had attended a few scattered Lakers games, and by last year I attended half of the Lakers home games while going to Cal State Fullerton to become a journalist, co-hosting a daily podcast, working at the Daily Titan (CSUF’s school paper that I’m now managing editor of) and never sleeping.

None of it would have been possible without Silver Screen and Roll. This site allowed me an avenue to write a ton of bad stuff until I was writing a few competent things. It gave me life-long friends and a lifelong passion. It gave me a reason to want to live that life.

So for that, I thank you for reading, for giving me a reason to keep writing, and a sense of community when I needed one. Thank you to Drew, one of the best editors and friends I’ll ever have and someone who I wouldn’t be here without. Thank you to Seth Pollack for always giving me extra guidance when I needed it and always looking out for what’s best for me.

This place was my home. It was always going to take an incredible opportunity to get me to leave, and the chance to work with an incredible team at Lakers Nation that includes Serena Winters (the hardest-working person I've ever met) and Trevor Lane (who I've wanted to reunite with since his own SS&R departure).

Even though I'm leaving, I won't be gone. I will always appreciate my time at Silver Screen and Roll and plan to continue to read every post on it just as I have for the last six or seven years. This place will always hold an incredibly special place in my heart, and thank you one last time for reading.

I’ll see you guys around,

Harrison

Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen, or support his work via Venmo here or Patreon here.