Shirley still popular after stint with Suns

If you haven’t kept track of Paul Shirley since his short-lived but endlessly interesting stint with the Phoenix Suns ended four years ago, he’s not inclined to hold it against you.

Suns' bench to be more involved under Porter

The basketball vagabond and journalistic troubadour hasn’t been back to Phoenix since. He’s been busy publishing a book (successful and now in paperback); pushing a TV sitcom (the pilot wasn’t picked up by Fox); enduring three arthroscopic surgeries and a broken ankle; competing in a summer league and training camp stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves; and playing for two more teams in Spain – expanding his total list of professional teams to 14.

So at the age of 30 – still working out and plotting his next career move – Shirley will be at Majerle’s in the Chandler Fashion Center on Tuesday to talk with fans, sign copies of his book -- “Can I Keep My Jersey?” -- and further enjoy an interesting life as the NBA tips off another season without him.

Not that he’s given up on a return to league. Not by a long shot.

“I never thought I would feel so good at 30,” said Shirley, who turned a blog on Suns.com during the 2004-05 season into his own cottage industry. “It’s unlikely the NBA will come calling this year since I didn’t play summer league or go to camp with anyone. But I do intend to find a good European situation and show that I’m a late-bloomer. I’ve kind of figured out my body at this point. And who knows, basketball life might begin at 30.”

His book, originally released in 2007, came out in paperback this spring and is a hilarious account of his life at the end of the NBA bench and in the thick of the action in both the minor leagues and Europe.

The former academic all-American at Iowa State chose the book title as homage to his first training camp with the Los Angeles Lakers – a three-week stint alongside Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as a non-roster player. When he was released, he asked the equipment manager, just to make sure, if he could keep his personalized Lakers jersey.

“He said, ‘We’re not a team that does that,’ and I couldn’t believe it,” Shirley said. “Then I walked back to the locker room and stole two pairs of shoes.”

Shirley felt the Fox pilot, which cost $3.6 million to produce and only 25 minutes on the air to reject, fell victim to too much tweaking and morphing by the network. “By the time the show was done I hardly recognized it,” said Shirley, who previously likened the finished product to “Scrubs: The Basketball Edition.”

“They produce eight or 10 pilots a year and from those they pick two or three to go with,” he said. “You might see it again someday. Nothing ever really dies in television.”

Much like Shirley, the Suns’ successor to 12th man irrelevance – Pat Burke – wrestled with the concept that they were more known for their comic relief than their basketball skills. Like much of what has gone on in Phoenix since his departure, Shirley only knows what he’s seen in snippets on the internet.

“I know Pat a little and I saw some of his (scoreboard satire) videos and they were very cool,” Shirley said. “It’s nice to know he carried the torch. And it is possible to be an amusing tall person and also play professional-caliber basketball.”

As for the Suns, Shirley said he was surprised to see the Suns change styles and coaches with Terry Porter taking over for Mike D’Antoni.

“It’s a strange thing to me that people can so quickly forget the bad old days,” Shirley said. “The object of all this is to win games and be exciting and entertaining under the big top. Messing with that wouldn’t seem to be the best idea.”