by Paul Shirley
Because I am a lowly, un-guaranteed free agent trying to make his way at training camp with the New Orleans Hornets, I kept my mouth shut.
It seems that the obvious question, when presented with the factoid contained at the end of the previous paragraph, would be: “Why, Paul, when you have, not once, but twice before attended training camps under similar circumstances, would you subject yourself to it again?” If approached with this question immediately preceding the second practice of the day, the answer would be: “Because I’m a fucking idiot.” If faced with the same question, but under better conditions (a situation in which I have yet to be placed since my arrival in New Orleans, unless one were to count the time I found out that the hotel gift shop sells little cartons of milk and packages of ready-to-eat Apple Jacks in plastic bowls), I would reply with: “I really feel like all the credit goes to God and to my offensive line.” No, wait, wrong stock sports-related answer. Actually, I am here in New Orleans because I had offers to go overseas in August and September but they were un-spectacular ones, because this summer my shoulder was still too broken to allow me to play in NBA summer leagues, and because I need to get my name back in the shuffle, so to speak. Most important, I am here because Tim Floyd is the head coach of the Hornets. Since things worked out pretty well for me the first time he asked me to play for him (back at Iowa State), I thought it was worth trying again. Dance with the one who brought you, and all that.
Theoretical reporter questioning Paul Shirley:
Theoretical reporter: Paul, tell me about your situation with the Hornets.
Paul Shirley: Well, here’s the deal with the Hornets (yes, the Charlotte Hornets did move to New Orleans several years ago, which is something of a shock to many people, including some of the citizenry with whom I have conversed here in this fair Louisiana city). Continuing in a theme similar to that found at my training camp stints with the Lakers and Hawks, the Hornets have invited more players to camp than will be on the opening-day roster. As always, an NBA team is allowed only fifteen on that list. But there is no limit to the number of players invited to training camp. (Actually, there is probably a limit. It seems like 972 would be a few too many. Unfortunately, I don’t want to admit my ignorance and let on that I don’t know what that limit might be.) In camp here in New Orleans, we are seventeen.
TR: Sounds like pretty good odds, I would say. Fifteen out of seventeen make the team? How could you possibly screw this up?
PS: I would advise caution if anyone were tempted to fire up the Paul Shirley replica jersey looms. NBA teams, or more accurately their general managers, remain proponents of huge, guaranteed contracts given to players who do their jobs well. The Hornets currently have fourteen players who are guaranteed for the upcoming season.
TR: Okay, so that means there are three players fighting for that fifteenth roster spot. Those aren’t bad odds, are they?
PS: Not so fast. The management of the New Orleans Hornets has made it quite clear to me that they will be keeping only fourteen players on the roster this year.
TR: What a bunch of tightwads.
PS: You said it.
TR: Why, then, did you come to New Orleans if you had no chance to make the team? Are you retarded?
PS: Both good questions. I came because this team will lose a bunch of players after this year and it is possible that those in management positions might see something they like out of me and my skinny white frame. When Coach Floyd called to ask what I was doing this fall, he told me that I had no chance to make the team, but if I had nothing better to do, I should come down and go through training camp with the Hornets. Since my agent could not come up with a better option, I made the trip. Plus, there is always the chance that half the team will fall prey to HIV because of some freak, previously unheard-of, homosexual locker room gang bang, and I will be around to fill one of the open roster spots.
TR: Fair enough. Our time is up. I need to go talk to someone more important.
A part of me was intrigued by the prospect of training camp with the Hornets just to see how Tim Floyd would go about coaching a professional basketball team. I played for Floyd for two years at Iowa State before he left Ames for the thankless job of replacing Phil Jackson as coach of the Chicago Bulls. I had heard from varied sources what Tim Floyd: Version 2.0 Pro was like, but was intrigued to judge for myself. (Most reports out of Chicago leaned toward a mellowing I thought to be impossible for one of the most intense coaches I have ever seen in action.)
Watching Coach Floyd do his open-the-season speech in New Orleans was surreal. It had never occurred to me that I would be on the receiving end of such an event again. The first time I was subjected to the experience, I had walked to the team meeting with absolutely no idea what to expect. It was my third day on campus at Iowa State. I could barely find my way to class each morning, so I was in no way prepared for the three-hour monstrosity that passed as our welcome meeting. I had never seen such intensity. To consider interrupting Coach Floyd as he stood at the front of the room going through the twenty-page booklet he had prepared for the occasion was seemingly to consider having one’s person, along with one’s basketball career, thrown out the nearest window. I left the meeting with sweat running down the inside of my shirt. I was scared.
Fast-forward to the Hornets’ welcome meeting. The atmosphere was slightly more relaxed than it had been in college, not in small part because we were all seated at a swanky restaurant in the French Quarter and not in a dimly lit basketball office in Ames, Iowa. The proceedings with the Hornets were delayed about forty-five minutes while we all awaited Baron Davis’ arrival. When he did grace us with his presence, he was neither frazzled by, nor apologetic for his tardiness. (I think his basketball upbringing might have been a mite different than mine.) Stacey Augmon drank five Heinekens through the course of the evening and seemed much more interested in the events in other areas of the restaurant than anything his coach was saying. Meanwhile, Coach Floyd seemed relieved just to get through his opening remarks without being shouted down from the microphone. It seems that coaching in the NBA takes a slight change in mind-set from coaching in college.
Practice is not exactly the same either. NBA players are not used to a lot of, shall we say, criticism, so Coach Floyd is forced to be a bit more positive than I remember. The famed intensity is still present, of course. But now after a defensive breakdown, instead of spewing forth a rant containing several unprintable expletives and an allusion to the fact that the player’s mother was not known for her defensive ability either, he will say something like, “That wasn’t really what I had in mind there, George, why don’t you try it another way?” Which, of course, is hilarious to me, because I know exactly what is whizzing around in his head. The player involved, having had no prior experience with the man, has no idea of the bullet he just dodged because he plays for the New Orleans Hornets in 2003 and not the University of New Orleans in 1992. (Floyd coached at UNO before taking the Iowa State job. His New Orleans connections don’t stop there. He was raised in the city and returned after his stint in Chicago. He was then in exactly the right place when the Hornets fired head coach Paul Silas.)
The Hornets’ organization is not known for being a particularly well-run outfit. The owner is among the most penny-pinching in the NBA and, because of its quick departure from Charlotte, the team walks something of a thin line with the league. Coach Floyd knew all of this when he took the job. While he did understand the risk, he is not an idiot and would have been remiss to turn down a large, guaranteed contract when handed the opportunity. I, however, knew very little about the Hornets before getting to the Big Easy. For now, I am on the fence in my judgment of the organization. I have observed a few entertaining exchanges—perhaps a few more than in other places. For example, at our opening meeting, the assistant to the general manager attempted to lay out the guidelines for the year, while also introducing the personnel involved with the team. His lack of preparation was quite apparent. He was unsure of the ide
ntities of several of the people he was supposed to introduce and seemed confused regarding the exact point of his talk throughout. More telling—and more entertaining to me—he completely sweated through the armpits of the blue dress shirt he was wearing. It was as if he had never spoken in front of more than three people in his life. The most disconcerting aspect of the meeting, though, was that the first person introduced by the sweat-stained wonder was not the head coach. Or a new player. Or a team captain. It was the director of marketing. Priorities, priorities.
NBA players are full of surprises. The Hornets are no exception. When I think of Stacey Augmon, now of these Hornets, I think of the University of Nevada–Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels. (I have always hated that the word in their mascot’s name was actually spelled Runnin’—such purposive grammatical errors give me no hope for humanity. Yes, I am a dork.) I think of Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony, and Jerry Tarkanian. I think of scoring and Loyola Marymount. I think of casinos and gamblers and under-the-table payments made to spectacular athletes with questionable integrity and intellect. I do not, however, think of nice guys. But maybe I will now, because Stacey Augmon seems like a hell of a good dude. A little old, perhaps, and with a run-hard-put-up-wet look about him, but about as friendly a professional basketball player as I have seen. It throws off my whole value system. Dammit.
October 13
For me, a typical NBA game experience with the Hornets usually goes something like this…
Two separate team buses depart the hotel. One, the early bus, leaves about two and a half hours before the game. The late bus follows half an hour later. Since I have nothing better to do, I always take the earlier of the two. Upon arrival at the arena, I usually hang out in the locker room for a bit, partaking of as much of the available free food as is humanly possible for a person about to participate in a physical activity. After gorging myself on fresh fruit and Gatorade, I don my uniform. In my experience, the NBA game uniform is not exactly built for comfort. It feels like it weighs five pounds and the inner lining appears to be made from sandpaper—my skin often comes out of the evening red and blotchy. (I have a theory that the powers that be do not notice a locker room full of rosy backs and chests because of the rather one-sided racial makeup of most teams. I don’t know what a black guy’s skin does when it is irritated; whatever it is, it is not nearly as evident on his as it is mine.) NBA players are provided with about thirty-seven different shooting shirts and warm-up tops; most players do not put on their actual jerseys until right before the game. I, being deathly afraid of the scenario wherein the coach calls for me to join the game and I rip off my warm-up only to find that I forgot to adorn myself with my game jersey, always put on my jersey and the lightest of the warm-up tops for the pre-warm-up warm-up. Oh, and I put on shorts, too. Naked from the waist down is not encouraged in the National Basketball Association. At least not in games.
Once I have prepared myself for battle, I head out to the court to work out. I write “work out” instead of “warm up” because a workout is what my warm-up usually becomes. Since I know that I am unlikely to play meaningful minutes in the game that is to follow, I assume I ought to do as much ass kissing as I can and so stay on the court as long as possible. Plus, any scout watching would have to be impressed by my ability to simultaneously dodge announcers, cheerleaders, and rogue basketballs while participating in an hour-long individual workout.
When I am finished honing my game and/or talking to opposing players I know, I report back to the locker room. There, the usual pregame hoopla takes place. The coaches speak; the players do their best to tune it out. I mean, they are the best in the world, right? There is hardly anything that some little white guy wearing a suit could tell them that they don’t already know. After waiting until the last possible moment, the team exits the locker room, usually to engage in complex warm-up rituals, such as when most everyone stands around under the basket and watches the three people with basketballs shoot until one of them misses, at which point the rebounder gets a chance to saunter out from under the basket to cast up a shot. Warm-up routines in the NBA are complicated.
After the introduction of the starting lineups, I scurry over to the end of the bench in order to secure a seat. In my experience, sitting on the floor for the two and a half hours that a professional basketball game consumes is neither comfortable nor enjoyable. I can usually find a chair at the beginning of the game. However, problems arise when the starters come off the floor. Because they are tired, they spread out all over the place and seem none too excited when I try to squeeze in my nonplaying ass, so I am sometimes relegated to the floor with the rest of my bench-warming contemporaries. (The number of available seats is too small because the benches are set up for regular-season games. Preseason rosters are, obviously, larger than regular-season ones.)
Once game play begins, my brain goes numb and I fall into a routine of clapping, getting up to congratulate players when they come out of the game, and trying to make it look like I am paying attention during time-outs, when all I really want to do is watch the dance team. I break out of my reverie about midway through the second quarter, when I could conceivably enter the game for semi-meaningful time. An NBA coach generally leaves his starters in the game for the first eight or nine minutes of the game. The second string, if the coach is blessed with a good one, usually plays the next six to seven minutes, depending on its success on the floor. In an early preseason game, the coach might call upon some of what would be his third string at this point in the game. (Me, for example.) During the season, it would be folly for the coach to throw so many players into the game, but during the preseason, when a team is trying to find out all it can about the players on its roster, the man in charge may do just that—hence my attention to the game. I also make sure the laces on my shoes are tied—any invitation to play that I might get would certainly fall under the category of “on short notice.”
At halftime, we return to the locker room, where more talking and non-listening goes on. When the coaches are finished, we wander back to the court. Then the third quarter begins…and time slows down. NBA games are extraordinarily long; the third period is the worst. I would not advance the theory that it is actually longer; I think it just appears as such because the early-game excitement has worn off and the end-of-game excitement is still a quarter away. Both teams muddle their way through the third with what appears to be little care for the score, hoping mostly to pass the time until the end of the game.
If, at the onset of the fourth quarter, I have not appeared in the action, one of two things happens. If my team is ahead, I cheer for each addition to the lead and despair for each subtraction from it, but do both somewhat halfheartedly. If my team is behind, I am much more of a die-hard fan. I have no desire for any garbage time—that pea riod after the moment everyone in the arena realizes that one team is lying on the canvas next to two front teeth and a pool of bloody snot. I want no part of cleanup, for two reasons. (Game cleanup, not bloody-snot-from-the-boxing-analogy cleanup.) First, it is a no-win situation. If I play badly when it doesn’t matter, I must really be awful(e.g., “I can’t put Shirley in the game in a meaningful situation, he couldn’t even play well when we were up thirty”), but if I play well, then I only did it against tired players or fellow scrubs (e.g., “Well, sure, he scored ten points in five minutes, but the guy guarding him was dog-tired and only had one eye”). Second, after sitting around for two-plus hours, my body is in no condition to try to perform at its best level. It’s like taking a rubber band out of the freezer.
If I am given mop-up duty, it is usually only for about two minutes, which doesn’t sound like much. However, those often seem to be the most exhausting two minutes of all time. For whatever reason, be it the adrenaline or the two hours of ass-sitting, I am always nearly completely spent after a minute and a half. (Insert sexual prowess joke here.) I don’t understand it; perhaps my body is trying to compress the thirty minutes of action most players get into the two that I get. W
hatever the reason, by the time the buzzer sounds, I usually feel like I just played the whole forty-eight minutes. But, since I didn’t, I have to appear calm and collected and act like whatever misdeed or heroic act I performed during my two minutes of glory was no big deal.
I was given an opportunity to consider this progression of an NBA game during a recent preseason game with the Dallas Mavericks, but this time, I had to balance all of my philosophizing with actual game play. (Warning: basketball-speak ahead.) With about three minutes to go in the first half, the two power forwards ahead of me on the depth chart were incapacitated, one due to foul trouble, the other because of fatigue. Coach Floyd started searching the bench for a replacement; I assumed he was looking for me. I was wrong. He, in fact, put one of my fellow bench warmers, a small forward, into the game. My brain would have accepted the move quietly if either of the following conditions could have been met: (1) said player actually knew that position in addition to his own, or (2) I thought I deserved to stay on the bench due to blatant inability on my part. I could not justify either condition in my mind, so I just sat on the bench (floor, actually; I had a poor round of seat stakeout in this particular game) and steamed about the fact that I played more in preseason games when I was fresh out of school and a temporary member of the two-time defending world champion Los Angeles Lakers than I had on a not-very-good team with my goddamn college coach at the helm. As the—to take it back to third grade—topic sentence of this paragraph indicated, I did in fact get in on the action…with six seconds to go in the first half. I even had time to make my mark on the game. With two seconds remaining in the half, we had the ball at the end opposite our basket. I was given the duty of heaving the ball to the opposite free-throw line, where our center was supposed to make some miraculous play or another. Because my right arm is still prone to noodle-like behavior due to a slow recovery from the injury of last spring, I wanted to make sure I didn’t girl-toss the ball to half court. Result: I threw it out of bounds on the far end. Maybe I should have stayed on the bench after all.
