I've written a book that will be released by a major publishing house this April. This fact puts me in the 99th percentile for weirdness among current professional basketball players.
My agent, Keith Glass, has written a book that was released by a major publishing house on Feb. 27. This puts him in the 95th percentile for weirdness among current basketball agents -- the difference in percentiles directly related to the difference in average intelligence between the two populations. I can imagine a book written by Leigh Steinberg a lot more easily than I can one by Shawn Marion.
This book-releasing orgy means one of two things. Either my existence is the most bizarre of anyone I know, or I picked exactly the right agent.
Or perhaps both are true.
My writing "career" has wreaked havoc on my basketball "career." Some general managers now question my dedication to the sport; they seem to think the 21 hours each day that I am not working out would be better spent in nobler pursuits than writing. Like fathering illegitimate children or shooting at my illegally procured pit bulls.
Over the course of the past two years, I have often asked Keith for his advice regarding the effect my writing was having on my career. He understands the stakes -- he knows how much I want to play.
But he has always reminded me that each of us gets to live only once. He's told me to do what makes me happy. And writing makes me happy.
Keith's understanding of this trait means that I might have the perfect agent. Or, because Keith's earnings are tied to my basketball contracts, it could mean that I have the worst agent in history.
Keith's book, called "Taking Shots," is not all that well-written. Keith will never be compared to (Strangely, I was compelled to write "compared to Hemingway." But I think Hemingway sucks. I've never read a more sleep-inducing book than "For Whom The Bell Tolls." But apparently we Americans have been conditioned to think that Hemingway is a great writer. I wonder if it was planted somewhere near "You will hate the Soviet Union" in my middle school textbooks.)
However, Keith's book is thoroughly entertaining. In his time as a basketball agent, he has represented the likes of Mark Eaton (famous mostly for having a bitchin' beard), Scott Skiles (famous mostly for being a really good basketball player and coach) and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (famous mostly for once being named Chris Jackson and for sitting out the national anthem). He's represented players in negotiations with NBA teams, European clubs and prosecuting attorneys.
But that isn't the compelling part. What makes Keith's story eminently readable is that he has maintained his own sanity throughout.
He hasn't bought into the myth that is the NBA. He understands that the NBA is a circus.
In fact, before some cowardly middle manager took control of the situation, his book was called "Seven-Foot Man-Eating Chicken," an allusion to an advertisement that P.T. Barnum would run in advance of the circus coming to town. When audience members would get under the big top, they would find a seven-foot man eating chicken.
(The title was abandoned because the NBA is predominantly black. As if white people don't eat chicken. And as if the title had anything to do with race. Don't be surprised when I kill myself, fed up with society in general.)
Keith's book is full of funny stories. But that's not really the point of "Taking Shots." The stories are merely the pieces of a collage that lead the reader to the eventual conclusion that the world of professional basketball is pretty screwed up.
Which makes me think that I was hasty to judge Keith as less than a brilliant writer. Through humor, he managed in his book to express a fairly weighty opinion on a subject close to his heart. Not bad for a guy who got his law degree at the University of San Fernando Valley Law School.
That I have decided that Keith may have outsmarted us all with his covertly brilliant writing style does not solve the problem of whether or not he is the perfect agent for me. If I were to think like NBA GMs, I'd wonder if he continues to represent me only because I'm strange and, therefore, probably good for some material.
But I don't think so. Keith is different from most agents (and from most people) because he always tells the truth. That trait probably keeps him from being the best agent alive, but being called the best agent alive is somewhat akin to getting called the most effective serial killer in the 1980s. I don't think Keith is interested in being called the best agent alive. He is interested in helping people get basketball jobs, and making money doing it. The only way he knows to do that is to tell the truth.
In many of my own dealings with teams, Keith and I have wrestled with the approach to take with those on the other side of the negotiating table. Whether the object of discussion was money, playing time, or one of my myriad bizarre injuries, we've found ourselves in many situations that presented us with varied degrees of truth-telling options. But at the end of our conversations, Keith has invariably said, "Let's go with the truth."
For example: "Well Paul, we'll just have to tell the team in Italy that you can't sign because of your raging case of leprosy. It won't help to lie; they'll see the skin sloughing off your bones once you get off the plane. So let's go with the truth."
I don't think I could be represented by anyone else. Keith and I are almost inexorably linked by our oddness. And not our oddness in comparison to those in our chosen fields. Oddness in comparison to humanity. Sadly, honesty is not exactly a universal trait. Of course, our version of honesty -- the brutal kind -- isn't what people have in mind when they speak the word.
But it seems to work for us. Keith may not be renowned as the most successful agent in history, and I will probably never be known as anyone's favorite basketball player, but both of us will be able to rest easy on our deathbeds, heartened by our straightforward dealings with our fellow man. (Sadly, my time on a deathbed will be short. The head injury I will sustain when Keith finds me and shoots me for calling his book "not all that well-written" will result in almost no time for reflection.)
And we'll both have been given the privilege to write about all of it. I have a feeling that we both might eventually find that to be more important than anything else.
Paul Shirley has played for 12 pro basketball teams, including three NBA teams -- the Chicago Bulls, Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns. Paul can be found at myspace.com/paulshirley. His book, "Can I Keep My Jersey?", can be found here.