Can I Keep My Jersey?
Page 36
With the attitude that has been bred into my team comes a feeling of invincibility. I’ve felt all along that everyone involved with the organization assumed that we would play well into the late spring, and no one would be surprised to see us win it all.
Everyone’s confidence was shaken with our second loss to the Spurs. I don’t think the defeat itself was all that unnerving; it was the way it happened that was so deflating. San Antonio ground out the win, much the way they did in the first game of the series. I think my teammates felt powerless to stop the Spurs because they kept making timely baskets and we could do nothing about it.
I’ve been caught up in the season-long fervor. Our series deficit and the real possibility of our season’s end has caused me to consider three things:
1. How happy I’ve been with the Suns
2. That my happiness could end quickly
3. Whether or not I’ve taken appropriate advantage of my celebrity-by-association to up my career sexual output
My approach to my life and my basketball career is based on logic. Too much so, in fact. I’d be a better player if I could think less. The benefit of my reasoned approach is a fairly strong sense of self-awareness. I know my role with the Phoenix Suns. I’m the white guy at the end of the bench who doesn’t play very much. For now. But because of the way I played in training camp, I’ve never felt as though my status would last forever. When I returned to the team after the Russian experiment, Coach D’Antoni was using eight players in each game, and the team was winning. There was no need for me, or for anyone else, to gum up the works.
It would have been easy for those associated with the team to see me as a mascot. There aren’t very many of us in the NBA, so it’s easy to take us lightly. (White guys, not players who overthink everything. Although those are few and far between as well.) But I don’t think anyone affiliated with the organization laughs about my place on the team. I could be wrong, but I think they see the situation as I do—that there is no real need for me. Or for Bo Outlaw. Or for Jake Voskuhl. Or for Walter McCarty. We’re on the bench not because we’re charity cases but because the players ahead of us happen to be really good.
I sometimes do a poor job of expressing my opinion of myself to the public. I’ve embraced my job in a self-deprecating way. Now that I’m writing about it—and now that people are reading that writing—it’s evident there’s an audience that’s interested in the lot of an in-between basketball player.
The resulting attention hasn’t been all that surprising. NBA fans are desperate for some hope that players remain human. They are bombarded with news of huge salaries, outlandish purchases, and late-night arrests. They need to hear that players think the way they do. Or, at least, sometimes think the way they do.
And they need to see someone white. The majority of the American population remains white. The majority of the NBA remains black. Every person in history, regardless of remarks to the contrary, has an easier time rooting for someone who looks like him.
Enter me. (That was gross.) I should write: Enter…me—sort of normal-looking, pale-faced, somewhat witty. I’m the liaison between the fan and the sport that left him behind when Larry Bird’s back began to ache.
Since I was living it, I embraced my role. Fact: I don’t play much for the Phoenix Suns. When asked about that, I had two options. I could furrow my brow and act angry that I’m not playing twenty minutes a night. Or I could laugh, enjoy the moment, and make a quip about the superiority of fake breasts in LA over those in Phoenix. I assumed that people understood my self-deprecation. I obviously think I can play or I wouldn’t be in the NBA. I don’t need to talk about my abilities—that’s what insecure people do.
I hope the management of the Phoenix Suns understands. I hope they remember that I can play. I hope they haven’t been participating in an elaborate cover-up by acting as if they like having me around. It would be nice to stay here.
June 10
I write on my last night in Phoenix. The only things left in my apartment are the awful rental furniture I have endured for three months, the computer on which I currently type, and some leftover cereal boxes.
Our season ended with a whimper. The San Antonio Spurs eliminated my team in the Western Conference Finals, winning the series 4–1. I reported to America West Arena the day after our final loss and immediately began searching for as many pairs of Phoenix Suns shorts as I could carry.
That the end came so abruptly was not new; my every year of basketball has ended before I could really grasp that it was happening. But this year seemed especially shocking. When the final horn sounded after Game 5 with San Antonio and there were no more sporting contests for my purple-and-white-clad teammates, everyone in Phoenix found themselves in a state of disbelief. I was no different.
When I signed with the team in late January, my contract included a clause that gave the team an option on my services for next season. Said option would have to be exercised by June 15 of this year. On June 16, there will be a line under the “Transactions” section of many a local sports page that says, “Phoenix Suns decline option on F Paul Shirley.” In my postseason meeting with the powers that be, phrases such as “contract flexibility” were bandied about and I was, in essence, fired. I have been in such meetings way too many times for someone as young as I; because of that, I know that the real meaning of those words is, We do not think enough of your basketball skills to pay you the minimum salary required by the NBA, so find a different job. One day, I was the twelfth player on one of the four best basketball teams in the world. The next, I was unemployed.
When I joined the Suns after a long two months in Russia, I was as fed up with basketball as I have ever been. The positive attitude here was—as clichéd as it may sound—a breath of fresh air. In the end, this was my longest stay in the NBA, and that stay was with by far the best team of my young professional career.
That being said, no one likes rejection. Actually, some people do. I think they’re called masochists. (Or is it sadists? I can never remember.) I know I don’t enjoy being told that I’m not good enough at something—especially when that something is the one thing upon which I’ve built my entire existence and self-esteem.
Not to overdo it.
There is some truth to that sentence, though. My life has been oriented around my own basketball success. Basketball is what I do the best. It is likely that I’ll never be as good at any one activity.
I suppose I should be well equipped to deal with rejection at the hands of the Phoenix Suns. I’ve certainly experienced it enough. (By “it,” I mean rejection in general. Although this is now twice the Suns have sent me away. They’re like the dysfunctional girlfriend that everyone has. Well, that people who have long-term relationships have.) I’m not that well equipped. I don’t know what I’ll do next. I wanted nothing more than to keep playing for the Phoenix Suns. I’m left to start over. Again.
But I suppose I’ll find another home. This is what I do. People tell me no, I pick myself up, and I move on. I’m a nomad, albeit an oft-kicked-to-the-curb one. I don’t know what it says about me that the longest I have been in any one place since college is seven months, but I am getting used to the life. (Note to self: sign one of those seven-year, $100 million contracts soon—it will make for fewer gray hairs.) I think maybe I should be nicer to people or learn how to play basketball a little better. Or perhaps I should avoid massive internal injuries and/or angering foreign general managers. Obviously something needs to change.
Oddly enough, I am intrigued to see what comes next. Although I suppose that’s my only real option. There’s suicide, I guess. But I feel like that would make my mother sad. Earlier today, I finished a poor effort at packing my car with the clothes and few possessions with me in Phoenix. (Unfortunately, I was not blessed with my father’s car-packing prowess, so the whole process was an absolute debacle. I did manage to keep the blind spot clear, which should make him happy, if I do in fact survive the eight-million-mile drive bac
k to Kansas.)
As I have been saying my good-byes to the people I have gotten to know while here, I have been asked several times how I deal with this level of ignorance regarding my own future. I don’t really have an answer, except to say that I am getting used to it. If I had three kids and a wife, it would be tough; I can’t imagine saying, “Okay, darlin’, load up Rusty, Darryl, and li’l Bobbie Sue. We’s a-fixin’ to get on back to Kanzass.” (That would be assuming I had grown up in Dodge City, I suppose.) At any rate, it would be a lot more difficult to live this life if I had anyone depending on me. But I avoid both commitment and responsibility like it’s my job, so the life I lead works. For now.
It promises to be an interesting summer. I suppose there is a chance the Suns’ management could come to their senses sometime before next season and realize how much they would miss my brighteyed, ever-cheery presence. But I’m not going to hold my breath. That eventuality would be too easy. And it would completely obliterate my migrant persona. I’d actually be in one city for a whole year. I’d have to put decorations on my walls…and relearn Spanish…and date girls for longer than two months at a time. I can’t be expected to live such a normal life.
So tomorrow will come. I’ll awake jobless and think about not getting out of bed. But then I’ll remember that I’ve figured it out before, so I’ll probably figure it out again. I’ll drive by the arena, where I will—for nineteen of the twenty seconds it takes to pass it—think wistfully of my time with the Suns. And then I will spend one second making obscene gestures directed at those who just fired me. But then my anger will pass. I’ll realize that, despite its ups and downs, my life could be a lot worse. As my father would say, I could be digging ditches.
Most important, I’ll ride off into the sunset…er…sunrise happy. Because at least the Suns, unlike the Lakers so long ago, let me keep my jersey.
Acknowledgments
The book is finished, which means that you’re reading this page for one of two reasons:
1. you really, really liked it;
2. you really, really hated it and are looking for contact info to be used in sending hate mail.
Those whose interest is related to reason number two should turn to the about the author page.
This book probably could have been written without the people in the list below. However, it would not have been worth a damn. Some of the people listed helped directly with the book, some helped me in other ways. To
my editor, Chris Schluep; my literary agent, Jay Mandel; my basketball agent, Keith Glass; Jeramie McPeek and Steven Koek, for launching my writing career; Bill Simmons, for drawing attention to it; Royce Webb, for keeping it going;
Chuck Klosterman;
Lynne Shook, Doug Gillispie (who, in a way, started it all), Tara Goedjen, Julie Flory, John DuPre, Erin Tyler, Kate Zenna, Fred Tedeschi, Dr. Tom Greenwald, Anne Beddingfield, Hap Eiche, Maynard James Keenan, Tom Shook, David Hamers, Ryan Broek, Brian Hagen, Derek Grimm, Bob and Meg Beck, Jerry Wilson, Ellen Suwanski, Mark Gretter, Chris Anstey, John Galt, Mark Fox, Joe Gerber, Eric Swanson, Randy Brown, Steve Krafcisin, Elliott Smith, Larry Kennedy, Neil Hayhurst, Jeff Lolley, Tucker Max, Mike Elliot, Erik Phillips, Jeff Nordgaard, Conor Oberst, Mike D’Antoni, Nina Peterson, Matt Santangelo, Rod Smith, Eric Waters, Trent Reznor, Jeremy Goldstein, Peter Cornell, Christos Marmarinos, Eva Charney, Phil Hay, Alex Jensen, Katie Benton, Ron Adams, Matt Condon, and Tim Floyd.
Scott Wedman; my family, for reading and criticizing; some other people, who I probably forgot to include, mostly because this page was done over the course of one afternoon.
Thanks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAUL SHIRLEY is a human being who sometimes plays basketball and sometimes writes books. Although, to this point, he has done more of the former than the latter, as evidenced by the number of basketball games in which he has played (approximately seven hundred) versus the number of books he has written (exactly one).
myspace.com/paulshirley
*1 I will not, however, rule out a tragic Corsica accident.
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**2 Until I sign a multiyear deal. Then, watch out.
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***3 To be honest, it is. If the ball comes my way, I’m shooting it.
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****4 See second footnote. The groupies won’t know what hit them.
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*5Note: I use the term we loosely and to mean “my team,” and only because it is the direct opposite of they, which I use as a stand-in for “the other team.”
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Copyright © 2007 by Paul Shirley
Introduction © 2007 by Chuck Klosterman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
VILLARD and “V” CIRCLED Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shirley, Paul.
Can I keep my jersey?: 11 teams, 5 countries, and 4 years in my life as a basketball vagabond / Paul Shirley.
p. cm.
1. Shirley, Paul. 2. Basketball players—United States—Biography.
I. Title.
GV884.S45A3 2007
796.323092—dc22
[B]
2006101184
www.villard.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-608-5
v3.0_r2