Anthony Davis settled on wearing No. 3 with the Los Angeles Lakers after some roadblocks delayed the original plan to don No. 23, and the superstar says messing around on a video game helped him make the decision.
Davis was set to wear No. 23 — thanks to LeBron James, who offered up the number to his new teammate — but Nike put the kibosh on it, citing “potential production and financial issues” related to James switching to No. 6. The changes in jersey numbers will now have to wait until the 2020-21 season.
Making an appearance this week on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Davis told the late-night talk show host how he arrived at the decision to wear No. 3 in 2019-20 with the aid of “NBA 2K.”
“Honestly,” Davis said, as transcribed by CBS Sports, “I just chose No. 3 — I went on ‘2K,’ the video game .. so I’m literally in my living room, on the video game, going to myself, ‘Edit Player,’ and I’m going through all the numbers.”
The new Lakers star also relayed to Kimmel what inspired his choice of jersey number for next season.
“It was my elementary school number — first number I ever played basketball in,” Davis said. “I saw No. 3, and I was like, this takes me back to elementary school where it all started.”
That’s not to say that Davis was not appreciative of James’ gesture, telling Kimmel about how things went down concerning the jersey number switch between himself and James, not to mention how disappointed he was over Nike’s decision to delay it for a season.
“We went to dinner, the first time we went to dinner since the trade happened, and (LeBron) was, like, ‘Man, look, here’s 23,’” Davis said. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, thank you, LeBron.’… (But Nike said) ‘we don’t care who you guys are; that’s too much money.’ So I was a little hurt.”
