His writing took the sports world by storm, yet he will probably never write a book or cover an athletic event.

Little known NBA reserve Paul Shirley has burst onto the scene, entertaining basketball fanatics with his Internet Web log. The reserve forward for the Phoenix Suns compiled his thoughts during a Suns road trip late in the season, giving fans a glimpse inside the mind of someone confined to the end of the bench.

Shirley, a 2001 ISU graduate and four-year letter winner on the men’s basketball team, applied his natural intelligence and razor-sharp wit to his online journal.

“They at random asked me, because they thought I could put down coherent notes on the road,” Shirley said. “I never had an interest in writing, but that’s probably because I had always been made to write. Writing for your own purposes is better than, say, writing a term paper.”

Shirley’s blog became famous for the little things he wrote about, ranging from trips to IHOP to the ugliest players in the NBA. All humor is tongue-in-cheek, with Shirley throwing plenty of jabs at himself. He also received national media attention, earning air time on ESPN and space in USA Today.

“I don’t think I got after anyone who plays in too vicious a manner,” Shirley said. “If anyone takes offense, then they don’t have a very good sense of humor.”

While Shirley said he doesn’t think much of his own literary skills, his ability to write has impressed others.

“Paul had written a letter to a newspaper — I don’t remember which one — about me [surrounding his dismissal from Iowa State], and it was the most impressive article that I’ve ever seen,” said former ISU men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy. “He’s brilliant. He has a great sense of humor and he’s so quick.”

Although Shirley played in just nine games this season for the Suns, he said he was able to learn much from the team’s stars, especially Steve Nash, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire.

“It’s especially nice to be around Steve Nash because he’s almost the perfect basketball player,” Shirley said. “He understands the game to a level most people can’t really grasp.

“I don’t know how much I can learn from Shawn Marion. His style of play is based a lot on reaction. He makes plays that are almost impossible for the rest of us mortals.”

The Suns finished the season with a 62-20 record, earning the first seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. Phoenix holds a 2-0 lead over Memphis in its first round matchup.

With so many stars, it’s Shirley’s work ethic that keeps him on the roster.

“He was our leader,” said former ISU guard Jake Sullivan. The two were teammates on the 2000-01 Cyclone team that advanced to the NCAA tournament.

“He was a guy who did all the little stuff, and that’s a huge reason he’s in the NBA right now,” Sullivan said. “He was one of the better teammates someone could have.”

Shirley played four years of basketball at Iowa State, working his way from a walk-on to NBA hopeful.

He was a freshman on the Tim Floyd-coached team that reached the Sweet 16, and as a junior was a member of the squad that lost in the Elite Eight to eventual champion Michigan State, a game widely regarded as the best matchup of that season’s tournament.

Not only did Shirley lead on the court, he excelled in the classroom as well. After graduating from high school with a 4.0 GPA, he earned academic All-American status and graduated from college with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Floyd could not be reached for an interview, but he did provide a statement about his former player.

“I’ve never had a player who worked as hard to become good,” he said. “He is arguably one of the brightest guys I’ve ever coached. I’m very happy that he’s now fulfilling his goals as a pro player.”

Floyd left Iowa State after Shirley’s sophomore season, jumping to the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. After, in came Eustachy, who immediately saw Shirley’s potential.

“He was a very serious guy and very mature for his age,” Eustachy said. “He was very serious in his intentions to play college basketball. I think he had a chip on his shoulder because he wasn’t highly recruited out of high school and was in school on an academic scholarship.”

Eustachy said he thought Shirley was a player who could advance his playing career.

“When I got to Iowa State, I sat him down and said, ‘I don’t know if you have thought about this, but you could make money playing basketball,'” Eustachy said. “I don’t think he knew his own potential.”

After his graduation from college, Shirley’s hopes of playing professional basketball were put on hold when he went undrafted in the 2001 NBA Draft.

“The year after my time at Iowa State ended, I was going to enroll in the MBA program at Kansas, ironically enough,” Shirley said.

Phoenix is Shirley’s third NBA team, but it is the first squad he’s been a part of that has experienced success. He has also seen action playing in Greece, Spain and Russia, as well as various stops in the Continental Basketball Association and American Basketball Association.

“It’s been a roller coaster to say the least,” Shirley said. “It’s helped me put everything in more perspective.”

Paul Shirley, real and raw:

In his blog, Paul Shirley mixes natural humor with keen insight from the floor of NBA arenas to create an entertaining work. Here are several excerpts from his entries. To read Shirley’s entire blog, visit NBA.com/suns.

Shirley on the loneliness of being on the road:

“I am 27, have no children, no wife, and no serious girlfriend and, while I am no male model, am not going to make anyone’s All-Ugly Team anytime soon. (Incidentally, my version of this year’s team has two members from Minnesota, one from the Milwaukee Bucks, one from the Warriors and one from the Portland Trail Blazers. In the interest of not getting the [crap] kicked out of me, should I actually play in a game against one of these teams, I will keep the exact identities to myself.)”

On his drop in intelligence:

“As I spend more and more time around basketball players, my brain power continues to diminish, which is not helping. I have been on a slow burn since college, where I was at least encouraged to spend half the day around semi-studious [okay, in my case, uber-studious, with the whole engineering thing] types, and my brainpower probably benefited. After four years of professional basketball, with the expected level of intelligence seeming to drain from the ranks as the don’t-go-to-college-since-you-can-get-the-guaranteed-money-now trend has taken hold, my brain is a veritable mush. The only thing left up there are a few quotes from ‘Tommy Boy’ and a dozen ways to cover a pick-and-roll.”

On his trip to a Miami beach:

“I had made a grievous error with my wardrobe choice, donning khaki shorts with no auxiliary option when I left the hotel. Poor planning. I did manage to remember to buy some sunscreen at the hotel. I took care to apply it liberally. For those not familiar with my appearance, I may be, with the exception of Kirk Hinrich, the whitest player in the NBA, and was not keen on ruining the rest of the road trip with a blistering sunburn.”

“We had today off, which is good news for my legs. Exhaustion is about to set in, what with all these 40+ minute nights I have been putting in … Wait … I somehow got confused and thought I was writing Shawn Marion’s journal entry.”