Throughout most of NBA history, players were granted the courtesy of hearing about trades before the rest of the world did. That was a benefit of the media mostly operating in print. But once the digital age kicked in and social media became the dominant form of news-breaking in sports, all bets were off. The best reporters have a trade up on Twitter before it is even completed.
Anthony Davis experienced that sensation firsthand.
Unlike the legions of Los Angeles Lakers fans desperately awaiting any news on his potential acquisition, Davis was not frantically refreshing social media in the days and hours leading up to his trade. Instead, as he revealed on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," he was watching a movie when the trade went down, and ultimately needed confirmation from social media when his agent was tied up speaking with the Lakers.
"I'm in Malibu in this hotel, watching a movie, Downsizing with the great Matt Damon ... and my agent is calling me and calling me and when I'm watching movies I don't like to be interrupted," Davis explained. "So I look [at my phone] and he calls right back. I put it on vibrate so I won't hear it. He calls again, and I'm like, 'Alright, it's gotta be something important.' So I call him and he was like 'Man, I've been trying to reach you. You just got traded to the Lakers.' But he was like, 'But, I gotta call you right back. I'm on the phone with the GM.' So I hang up and I'm like, 'Wait, I haven't heard anything about this. So me being a 26-year-old, I go to Instagram. It's on Instagram. It was everywhere. So I kinda figured it was true."
Fortunately for Davis, he didn't need social media to hear from his newest teammate. When Kimmel asked Davis how long it took LeBron James to reach out to him, Davis said that he heard from him in "maybe like 10 minutes," and that he sent a long text message detailing his excitement over their partnership.
Davis couldn't have been too surprised by the news. He had reportedly pushed for a trade to the Lakers since January, and he and James share representation at Klutch Sports. He may have been the last person to hear about the trade, but the move was his idea in the first place.
