Twelve-year-old Thomas Boston of Conover is a chatterbox. Even after breaking his arm in a middle-school football practice, he kept cracking jokes to keep his mother calm.

Yet he was strangely shy and coy in a Skype conversation last Friday. Must have been about the other person on the connection.

"He met his rock star," said Boston's father, William.

That rock star - Charlotte Bobcats rookie Kemba Walker - is hosting Thomas and William Boston tonight when the Bobcats play the Los Angeles Clippers. Walker's gesture relates back to that broken arm and the medical complication that followed.

Thomas Boston wanted to take his father to a Bobcats game and saved the money to buy two tickets to the Jan. 14 matchup with the Golden State Warriors. The day of the game, Thomas had a doctor's appointment, because the screw and plate installed to stabilize the fracture appeared infected.

The doctor said the infection was serious enough to operate immediately. Thomas didn't flinch about surgery until he realized it cancelled the trip to see the Bobcats. That's when Thomas became "really emotional," according to his dad, in law enforcement in the Hickory area.

Walker heard about Thomas' misfortune through the Bobcats. So he arranged to buy tickets for the Bostons and to meet them before tonight's game.

"I felt for the kid - just felt like I should do something nice for him," Walker told the Observer. "The kid tried to do something nice for his dad.

"It's always good to give back. I wish I could have had the same thing done for me (as a kid) - to have someone I look up to reach out. I want to be that person - a good guy in the community."