Washington Wizards' John Wall only has 3 smartphones
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — For Washington Wizards superstar John Wall, it's not "who you gonna call?" but on what device?
The 23-year-old point guard has not one, or even two, but three smartphones that he hauls with him when he's traveling. "One for business, one for family and one for people I meet," says Wall, who will be featured in Sunday's NBA All-Star game.
The lineup: two iPhone 6's, and the new BlackBerry Classic.
The iPhones are the important ones, especially for business. "That's where I try to build my brand," he says. If you're an aggressive sports fan, or someone he runs into who asks for a phone number, you get the BlackBerry number. Which he rarely answers.
When does he pick up? "Whenever I'm bored and have nothing to do," he says. And that's just to hear the messages.
For the record, Wall doesn't have different ringtones for each phone. He prefers just to let them vibrate.
We met up at the Montage hotel here when he was in town recently to play the L.A. Lakers. In our chat, Wall also talked gaming and the rise of selfies among sports fans — even though they don't have the same monetary worth as an autograph.
SELFIES
An 8x10 with Wall's signature currently goes for around $100 on sportsmemorabilia.com. But a selfie shot on a smartphone with a fan is just a virtual image. There's nothing to sign," he says. "So sports fans come up with unique ways to make it more special. "They get it printed and come back the next time we play. Our fans travel a lot."
Wall prefers signing his name and not posing for pictures. Many folks have trouble getting a good selfie because it's hard to fit a bunch of folks into the shot, but Wall has it down. "I have long arms," he says. "I have to be the one taking the selfie."
GEAR
He's got the Crestron home automation system, which he uses to control his house via an app, to turn the lights and music on and off and monitor security; the Xbox; and PlayStation 4. His console games of choice at home include NBA 2K10, Madden NFL 15 and Call of Duty. He travels with the phones, Beats headphones, an AT&T personal Wi-Fi hotspot device and a lot of chargers.
ON THE BUS
He watches movies on the iPhone, or listens to music on the $299.95 Beats pill XL speaker. His playlists include Lil Wayne, Jay Z and Kanye West.
TABLETS ON THE COURT
The NFL recently cut a deal with Microsoft to have its Surface 3 tablets on the field during the game to review plays. Does he want to see tablets used in the same way for basketball? "That would be hard," Wall says. "We have iPads to watch our plays. But on the court, we don't have time to look at the iPad."
FITNESS TRACKERS
He doesn't wear one off court, but the team uses them for practices, and he likes it. "It gives us adjustment in time to let us know how to build our speed up and improve," Wall says.
APPS
Wall says he isn't "an app person," and a quick check on one of his iPhones confirms, only one page of apps, inhabited by the usual: Facebook Messenger, Skype, Twitter and Instagram
Follow Jefferson Graham and John Wall on Twitter