Can I Keep My Jersey?

by Paul Shirley

  When I settled in, I noticed that a few things had changed since 1995. My grandfather got selfish and died on us, my youngest brother drank way too much milk and grew up on us, and my grandmother…actually, amazingly, she didn’t change a bit. She gets caught in repetitive story mode a bit more often, but generally is as spry as one could expect an eighty-two-year-old woman to be. I simply hope to be able to remember my own name at that age, so I am quite impressed by her steady-state appearance.

  I think the great thing about Thanksgiving is the lack of responsibility involved. (Unless, of course, one is in charge of the dinner proceedings—then the pressure is on.) For those of us with limited turkey-cooking skills, it is an opportunity to master the most American of pastimes, consumption without regard to consequence. Followed by napping. Followed by a groggy return to the kitchen in search of pies, cakes, and maybe even the odd choice cut of turkey that would look splendid on a leftover dinner roll. It is truly an amazing holiday. Also, I realize that I am not the first to write such things about Thanksgiving. Forgive me—it has been a while.

  It is most important that I got to be there for it all. I may miss the next seven or eight, so I needed one to refresh my memories of what a Thanksgiving is like.

  December 4

  While I’ve been sitting around becoming more American (fatter), the basketball season has been moving right along. With that in mind, I set about deciding what to do with myself for the rest of the year. I was due; it had been at least three weeks since my last life-altering decision.

  I have not yet received any earth-shattering offers from teams in Europe, so I am considering staying in the United States with the hope that someone currently playing in the NBA will rupture his scrotum and have to miss some time, causing his team to need a replacement, thus leading to a job for me. While I wait around for this turn of events, I need to find a place to play in the States. The ABA is the early leader.

  The ABA is similar to the CBA, the league in which I played last year. It is just another minor league—a holding ground for players hoping to make it back to the NBA at some point. The ABA is intriguing because there is a team in Kansas City. I find this attractive because I own a bed, a couch, and the walls that surround them in that city. My agent and I researched whether NBA personnel care whether a marginally talented white guy like me plays in the ABA, CBA, or NBDL (another minor league). The overwhelming consensus was that(1) it did not—good news for my hopes of playing in my home area, and (2) they were tired of Keith and me asking them intelligent questions.

  Unfortunately, the ABA (stands for American Basketball Association, I think) is inherently unstable. When the league was hatched three years ago, the plan was to pay players decent salaries (read: $60,000–100,000 annually) in order to keep them in the United States. The hurdle encountered en route to fulfillment of this plan was that revenues were not nearly enough to support such high wages, so several teams went belly up and many players never got the money promised them. (Basically, it was like playing in Greece.) As a result, the ABA was not able to complete a full season in either of its first two years. But now the league is back, economics lesson learned, paying crappy salaries just like the CBA and NBDL, and hoping to get through an entire year.

  My agent has not been too excited about the ABA plan. He is rather set in his ways—he has been finding tall white guys basketball jobs for a long time. In his experience, the CBA is the best choice among the minor leagues. I cannot argue with his logic, as the CBA certainly worked well for me; note last year’s call-up from the Yakima Sun Kings to the Atlanta Hawks as evidence. As it turns out, though, I could have been playing in the Alabama Correctional League for all they cared; they knew what I was like as a player because I had participated in their training camp. They weren’t sending scouts toYakima and Bismarck to find contingency players. That being said, my experience in Yakima was tolerable enough that I would not have been opposed to going back and playing for Coach Bill Bayno and the Sun Kings. (Tolerable on the basketball front, that is. On the having-a-life front, not as much. I could count the number of dates I had in Yakima on zero fingers.)

  Unfortunately, a return to the state of Washington is not a possibility. The CBA has banned me from playing for Bayno for one year.

  Yes, banned for one year. It all happened like this. The owner of the Sun Kings had this beautiful daughter. I could have sworn she was twenty-three, but it turns out she was only seventeen. Just kidding. Actually, the problem was a monetary one. The CBA did not like when Coach Bayno held up his end of the bargain and waived the team’s half of the buyout, resulting in my Pete Rose–like status in the league.

  Without any loyalty to a particular team in the CBA, I couldn’t get too excited about the idea of starting afresh with a new one when I could easily be playing in my home city. But, like in life, there are intricacies to the politics of basketball. My agent also represents the coach of the CBA team in Boise, Idaho. He would like that coach to have success. He has a player, me, who did well in that league a year ago and would conceivably do that again. Why not bring the two together? So I’ve had to fight off a bit of inner politicking in order to decide which plan is actually in my own best interest.

  Leading into Thanksgiving, it seemed to me that I would soon become a Kansas City Knight (the ABA team). But then, in a phone call with the coach of the Knights, Scott Wedman, of Boston Celtics and Kansas City Kings fame, I listened incredulously as he told me he wanted to “work me out” so he could “get a feel for me as a player.” (I realize that those quotes imply that he made flaming advances toward me, but in this case, I use them only to preserve his actual statements.) The younger, humbler version of me would never have had a problem with that request. Unfortunately, that version has been replaced my current, somewhat arrogant, slightly prima-donna-ish self, and that entity was a bit insulted by the idea. But I suppressed my ego and agreed to get worked out. (Sorry.)

  When I showed up at the gym, it seemed as if the coach did not really know what to do with me. His orders, as I got started: “Why don’t you just do what you would do if you were by yourself? We’ll just jump in and add some stuff as we go.” (Which, incidentally, could also be the instructions given to a porn star at the start of the day’s shoot.) Afterward, he somewhat grudgingly admitted, “You’re, uh, pretty good. I think you could help us.” Unfortunately, he has been treading on thin ice with my agent and with me; a coach called from an ABA team in Long Beach with a guarantee of a starting job, a lack of any contractual buyout, and a higher salary than in Kansas City. It sounded okay to me. But, the one thing he cannot offer is access to my own bed.

  As with most of my life, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe it will be Kansas City. Or Long Beach. Or Boise. Or maybe I’ll just move in with my grandmother and eat turkey.

  December 8

  As it turned out, the prospect of sleeping in my own bed won and I became a Kansas City Knight. After my first game I had to wash my own uniform. As I stood over the sink in my basement, trying to scrub out the bloodstains caused by someone’s leaky elbow, I was forced to question my decision to stay in the United States this year. I think the exact thought process involved some math work, like this: “Hmm, last spring I was making $20,000 after taxes a month to play two basketball games a week and live in an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean. Now I’m in my basement, washing my jersey by hand so that it will be ready for tomorrow’s game—all for an astounding $2,400 a month before taxes. It would appear that those four calculus classes I took in college are going to waste.”

  I was washing my jersey in the sink not because it is some sort of initiation after my first game with the team but as part of standard team operating procedure. We have since remedied that situation.

  I was using the sink instead of my washing machine because I don’t have a washing machine. And since the old folks in my condominium association decided that we all needed new roofs, it would appear that my trips to the Laundromat will not be en
ding anytime soon. It would seem that I, as a professional basketball player, should be able to weather such financial hits without flinching. The truth is that I haven’t exactly climbed to the top of any fiduciary mountains just yet.

  Speaking of Laundromats, I recently visited one. After I’d gotten the business of laundering started, I settled down to contemplate how many days I could tolerate as a Laundromat operator before I would go on a killing spree. When I looked up from my reverie, I realized that I had just finished running three loads of laundry without adding detergent. My clothes were thoroughly rinsed and prepared for a real washing, and I was $3.75 and a half hour poorer. An engineering degree does not a genius make. Perhaps my limited exposure to life in the NBA has left me bereft of even the most basic instincts of self-preservation. Apparently, when I started letting people carry my bags, I lost my ability to function as a human being. Whatever the case, someone should assign a monkey to the video recording of my life—I need a way to prove that these instances of knee-buckling stupidity do actually happen.

  It appears that the Kansas City Knights have a religious bent. One of the first team officials I met, even before the trainer, was the team chaplain. My first reaction was to wonder if he can get called up to the NBA like a player would. If the San Antonio Spurs’ team chaplain dies, does our chaplain call his agent and tell him to get to work on a ten-day, word-of-honor-only contract?

  At some point in my first day, someone mentioned that two years ago the team occasionally conducted a Bible study class. It is very possible that I am living in an alternate universe. I just don’t understand how religion and athletic competition are supposed to mix. I somehow doubt that Wilt Chamberlain ever went to Bible study. Or Magic Johnson. Or Bill Laimbeer. Or anyone else with any sort of killer instinct on the basketball court. Two of the players on my new team are serious Jesus freaks. They both played an exhibition tour this fall with Athletes in Action, which, as previously mentioned, is a cultish group that during halftime of its games with college teams attempts to convert the paying audience to Christianity. I actually know one of these guys pretty well. He went to training camp with the Lakers with me a couple of years ago. I was amazed then that a professional basketball player would read the Bible on our flight to Hawaii for training camp. I mention that tidbit because, due to my earlier experiences with him, I should have known better than to ask him how the exhibition tour with AIA went. (Actually I should have known better than to ask him anything at all.) He said it was great, both from a basketball perspective and from a spiritual perspective. After I threw up in my mouth, I said, “That’s great. Want some cocaine?”

  My first few games with the Knights were each followed by an autograph session. Sinners like myself signed “Paul Shirley, #11” and moved on to the next white-trash kid in line. God-boys one and two signed every autograph with a Bible quotation attached, as in “Bob Johnson, #24, Acts 12:5.” Every single time. Granted, it was not necessary for them to do it too many times; our attendance averaged out at around three hundred for the first three nights. Consistent with my brother’s suggestion, I began combating their ploy with a bit of sabotage of my own and started signing made-up Bible verses, as in “Paul Shirley, #11, Larry 33:86.”

  We (the Kansas City Knights) have won all three of the games in which I have played. We played those games on back-to-back-to-back nights, which is good for the knees, I hear. I would like to say that we won those games because of my presence, but a more appropriate description of the situation would be that we won them mostly because the other teams were so bad. The first opponent in the Paul Shirley epoch was from New Jersey and might have been the worst basketball team I have ever seen assembled at any level at which I have played. We were up by thirty at the half and won by forty. The next two nights at Hale Arena in Kansas City (which normally hosts rodeos) were spent dueling with the Juarez Gallos. As in Juarez, Mexico. I believe this means that the first A in ABA, for American, is used in the more general North American sense. Before the games with Juarez, all in attendance were treated to the Mexican national anthem. At least that’s what the public address guy said the piece of music was. I be-came suspicious when the same melody played over and over, until someone finally manually faded it out after about five minutes. It was a little awkward.

  December 21

  Good news—my basketball reappeared.

  I should explain.

  Part of my responsibility as a member of the Kansas City Knights is to keep track of the whereabouts of the basketball and jump rope that were issued to me at the beginning of my tenure with the team. I use both at practice. When we are finished for the day I put them in my bag and take them home with me. We practice at a college gym; we do not have our own facilities. We don’t have a locker room, aside from the public one used by staff and students. We don’t even have a training room—taping and treatment take place on a folding table near the end of one of the courts. As the trend of not-haves would suggest, to expect racks of basketballs awaiting us each day would be folly. So we each cart our own ball to practice, to games, and on road trips. Coach Wedman tells us that the process is good for our general mind-set, as we get “closer” to our balls since we carry them around all day. Which is true—I always like my balls better if I take them with me instead of leaving them on the bedside table. (Yes, it was a cheap gag. It was right there, though.)

  Back to the story of my reacquisition…During a recent home game with the Juarez Gallos, I meandered over near the opposing bench while waiting for a time-out to end. There, nestled in a ball bag with several others of its kind, was a basketball with my initials on it. It was like finding the last Easter egg back behind the couch. After the game, I explained as best I could to their non-English-speaking coach, first, that our team was so small-time that each player is required to transport his own basketball and, second, that they had taken my ball with them the last time we had played. He could not argue with the overwhelming evidence provided by the PS on one of the basketballs, and allowed me to take back my ball. It looked no worse for the wear after its trip to Juarez and back. More important, I will no longer be ostracized from the team and left out of pregame shooting drills because I don’t have a basketball to play with.

  December 31

  Keith called on a recent Wednesday night. It was about 11:30. Since my agent rarely calls to read me bedtime stories anymore, my curiosity was aroused. Over the course of the phone call, he explained that he had spoken that day with Scott Skiles, the coach of the Chicago Bulls (whom, incidentally, he also advises). The Bulls had recently found out that one of their players, Eddy Curry, was going to be out of commission for a few weeks due to a bone bruise in his knee. (Remember this diagnosis, it will be important later. Bone bruise.) This, of course, was only interesting to someone like me insofar as Curry’s potential hiatus would cause the Bulls’ roster to shrink to just nine healthy players.

  At the time of Curry’s injury, the Bulls had a full roster of fifteen players but also had recently experienced a raft of injuries. Because of this, Keith told me, the team would petition the league the following Monday for a special exemption that would allow them to sign another player.

  The Bulls had some interest in my limited basketball talents last summer and I had always been loosely tracked by whomever operates their basketball radar. The recent hiring of Skiles, with whom Keith claims to have some measure of influence, seemed to indicate that the time was nearly right for me to join the Chicago Bulls. In summary, Keith told me, if the Bulls got their exemption, there was a good chance I would go to Chicago. (Keep in mind, I’m only telling it how I heard it. Keith could have been blowing sunshine. For all I know, none of this ever happened and he created a story just to keep me on the hook and make me think he is diligently doing his job. But since we have now had at least five face-to-face meetings, I think I can trust him.) After all the background about the Bulls, Keith asked me if I was healthy. I told him, “Well, yeah, I’m doing fairly well. My knee has b
een bothering me a little, but I think it will be okay.” The preceding statement was made with my heart aflutter, because the actual truthful translation of that sentence would have been: Well, yeah, I’m doing fairly well…except that my knee has been bothering me ever since I started playing with the Knights. It doesn’t hurt enough that I would consider not playing, but it has felt better at other times in my life. I’ve been taking prescription anti-inflammatories for two weeks. In fact, I had an MRI just yesterday; I’m waiting on the results. So yeah, I’m great.

  So much for a truthful agent-player relationship.

  Actually, at the time, the MRI was done only to rule out anything severe, so I was not all that concerned. I did find it humorous that knee pain in Eddy Curry’s world equals a two-week hiatus, whereas in my world it rates only extra ice and the odd anti-inflammatory. He and I live in two very different worlds right now.

  I spent the next few days in a sort of high-alert mode, wondering if I would be spending Christmas at home or in Chicago, with my mind making all sorts of ludicrous leaps: Maybe I’ll get there and be unbelievable. Then they’ll keep me all year. Then they’ll want me to stick around and will sign me to a multiyear contract. That would be amazing. What’s the first thing I will buy when I’m a millionaire?…Truck for Dad? Porsche for Mom? Oversized keyboard like Tom Hanks in Big ?…Wait. What if I’m terrible? What if this is my one chance this year and they send me home after one day? What if that is my last chance ever?

  I really should be on some kind of medication.

  Monday arrived with no call from Keith. On Tuesday morning, he did call, but it was to say that the team doctor could not certify that Curry would be out more than the league-required two weeks, and so no petition could be granted. I thought about saying, “Uh, duh, Keith, he only has a bone bruise, and since the MRI I had last week showed that I have one too, I could have told you he wouldn’t be out two weeks. If he was in the ABA, he would be out there doing dribble relays like the rest of us.”