Baron Davis couldn't stop talking. He couldn't sit still. He couldn't stop twisting his red baseball cap around and around his head, bill at the back, bill at the side, bill at the front. The grin never left his face.

The Hornets point guard was on an unfamiliar stage Friday, seated in a huge Philadelphia hotel ballroom at his own table with his own nameplate, surrounded by the media and his fellow NBA All-Stars. Less than 24 hours after learning he would be a last-minute addition to the Eastern Conference roster, he was elated but still not quite sure he belonged.

"I'm kind of in awe right now," said Davis, 22. "To see all the superstars in one room and to be with them...I don't feel like I'm a superstar.

"I told Tim Duncan, `Man, I feel like asking for your autograph or something. I don't belong here.' "

Davis, leading the Hornets in points, assists and steals, just missed a spot on the East team when coaches recently selected reserves for Sunday's 51st annual All-Star game at First Union Center. He was disappointed but said he quickly got over it and made plans to go home to Los Angeles this weekend to visit his ailing grandmother, Lela Nicholson.

That all changed late Thursday night, not long after All-Star Vince Carter of Toronto sustained a sprained left quadriceps that will keep him off the court for about 10 days. Davis didn't know about Carter's injury or his selection as a replacement as he drove home from the Charlotte Coliseum after the Hornets' loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

"I was on my way home to finish packing for the L.A. trip," Davis said. "Actually I was talking on my cell phone to my grandmother when I got another call, from Big Shot (Hornets equipment manager David Jovanovic).

"He said, `You might want to call Stu Jackson (NBA vice president of basketball operations).' So I hung up with my grandmother and called him. He said, `You've made the team.'

"I couldn't believe it. But I was still going to go home instead and see my grandmother if she wanted me to come. She had pneumonia recently and she's better now, but I had been waiting for an opportunity to go see her and the All-Star break was it.

"But when I called her to ask, she was in a frenzy. She sounded like she was doing back flips through the house. She said, `Boy, you're not coming home, you better go on up there and play in that game with Michael (Jordan) and all those boys.' "

Davis finished packing. And Friday morning, instead of going to the gate at Douglas/International Airport for a 9:50 flight to Los Angeles, he took an earlier one at 9:30 to Philadelphia.

"I was like, `Let me get out of here before they change their mind,' '' he said.

He had been to All-Star Weekend before, participating last season in Washington in the slam-dunk contest and rookie-sophomore game.

"I've been nervous ever since they told me I was playing (in the All-Star Game)," he said. "I've got to find a way to calm down."

That might take a while, the way he was going Friday afternoon. Going nonstop, he talked to the Charlotte media, reporters from several Los Angeles television stations and national and international media.

"I have a lot of memories of watching All-Star games when I was growing up," Davis said. "I remember seeing Magic and Isiah squaring off. Karl Malone. Clyde Drexler. Jordan, of course. To be a part of that is really special."