Elton Brand will be filing a daily diary with NBA.com during his All-Star stay in Philly. Here's what he had to say about his first day in town.

February 8, 2002

I am so excited to be here!

We had a game in Detroit last night and I was doing my usual gameday routine. In fact, I was sleeping in my hotel room when the phone rang.


Elton Brand answers questions at Friday's media availability session.
Joe Murphy/NBAE/Getty Images
I heard the phone ring a few times, but I didn't answer it. I'm like, I'm napping for the game. Then Coach (Alvin) Gentry comes banging on the door to let me know that Shaq was hurt and I would be replacing him in Philadelphia. Then I checked my cell phone and I had 12 messages from my agent, David Falk and from my manager, Brenda Dews just letting me know that I had made the All-Star team. I was elated. I felt so honored.

I've had some injury problems in the past couple weeks, but right now I feel good. I'm just glad to be part of the festivities. It's a dream come true. I think a week and a half ago, I was all prepared; I had set my plans already. I had some big plans for this weekend. I was going to LA to … sleep! Now I know I'm not going to get much rest here, but I'd trade that in any day. I mean, I didn't really have anything to do. Now I'm so happy.

I have two teammates here as well. Quentin Richardson, who's competiting in both the Rookie Challenge and the Shootout and Darius Miles, who found out even later than I did yesterday that he would be participating in All-Star Weekend. But we didn't all get here together. They left Detroit today at 4:45 a.m. That's when their car left and I didn't want to wake up that early.

So I went later and got in around 1 p.m. I had a very good flight. After checking into the hotel, we had a meeting for all the All-Star participants and then went for a hour session with the the media. It was good. The media really felt I should be here and that was awesome too. The fans were hounding for it -- the media, they were talking about how I should have been in and things like that. So it felt good to make it.

I haven't eaten anything yet today and I'm starving. I thought I was done after the media session was over, but now I'm finding out that I have to go do interviews and portraits with the NBA. Food will have to wait.

Everything is so exciting about this weekend and I can't wait to soak it all in. Catch you tomorrow!