NBA TV. NBA.com. ESPN Radio. Grantland. ABC. Sirius XM radio.
Pick just about any well-known U.S. sports media entity, and New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis has been a featured guest on that outlet over the past 48 hours. In fact, before many of the other NBA All-Stars even arrived in New Orleans, Davis had already spent time with each of those aforementioned entities. On Thursday, the 20-year-old conducted roughly 10 separate one-on-one interviews, also carving out time in his schedule for NBA Entertainment, NBA Photos and NBA Cares, among others.
While making his All-Star debut, Davis has quickly realized that the basketball part of the league’s midseason showcase event is actually much less time-consuming than the media aspect of it. He played in Friday’s Rising Stars Challenge and will be in a Western Conference uniform Sunday evening for a few hours in the ’14 All-Star Game (7 p.m. Central, TNT), but that’s just a sliver of time compared to Davis’ countless off-the-court obligations.
“You’ve got to enjoy it,” Davis said at another media session Saturday morning, following the Western Conference All-Star team’s hour practice. “People want to talk to you, get inside your mind and see what’s going on. You know you’re going to do a lot of interviews during events like this. So my All-Star (experience) actually started Thursday. I’ve enjoyed it. Your career goes by fast. If you don’t take advantage of it, eventually you’re going to start wishing you did more. You have to have fun with it.”
Along with various media obligations, Davis also appeared at several autograph signings and participated in Friday’s NBA community service project, a playground build at the KIPP Primary School on St. Claude Avenue, located north of downtown New Orleans. In between basketball-related meetings and practices, Davis made or is scheduled to make corporate public appearances this weekend for Nike House of Hoops, Foot Locker, Red Bull, NBA2K and KIA.
“It’s been a great experience,” Davis said. “It’s been busy, but I’ve been trying to enjoy it all. A lot of media, a lot of appearances, a game last night. I didn’t really get any sleep (Friday night). I’m kind of tired.”
Despite the non-stop schedule, the Chicago native’s memorable experiences away from basketball have been piling up quickly. Among everything he’s done in the Crescent City over the past three days, he most enjoyed being a guest on the ESPN sports-pundit show “First Take.”
“First Take was cool, going on there with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. (Smith),” Davis said enthusiastically. “It was pretty awesome, because I had never done it before, and I watch that show all the time. Going on there and chatting with them was pretty cool.”