Craig Melvin’s son stepped up to interview an NBA star and didn’t break a sweat.
The Today personality’s 8½-year-old son Delano appears as a correspondent for NBC Nightly News: Kids Edition, sitting down with the Phoenix Suns’ Chris Paul in a fun interview clip shared with PEOPLE exclusively.
“What were you like as a kid?” Delano asks.
“It’s probably a different answer, if you ask me and if you ask my parents,” the NBA star replies. “I was active, very active. And I had an older brother, I had an older brother who I fought all the time.”
Paul remembers how he “played football and basketball” and was a “kid that was always into something.”
When it came to school, Paul says, “I was a pretty good student, but I think I used to always get in trouble for talking in class. So my grades would be good, but I’d have unsatisfactory as far as behavior.”
“That sounds like my dad,” quips Delano, making Paul laugh. He then asks the basketball player inspires him.
“Obviously, my kids, my wife, but the first person who always pops into my head is my dad,” he shares. “My dad is like my end all, be all.”
“For me, being 37 years old, there’s going to come a point in time in your life too, where you feel like you’re grown. You probably gonna be about 13 and start talking back,” he tells Delano, who starts looking from side to side and giggling.
“Well, I’m 37, and I still want my dad’s approval,” the NBA star continues. “I got kids of my own, got my own family, but my dad is still like my hero. If you fortunate enough to have that, from the looks of it, you’re on the right track.”
Delano thanks Paul for the interview, and Craig — who shares Delano and daughter Sybil, 6, with wife Lindsay Czarniak —then pops on to thank him as well, leaving Paul a little starstruck. “I gotta tell my wife,” he laughs.
Paul shares daughter Camryn, 10, and son Chris Jr., 13, with wife Jada Paul.
NBC Nightly News: Kids Edition, anchored by Lester Holt, airs Thursday at 4 p.m. ET on NBCNews.com and Saturday morning on NBC (check your local listing).
