After taking an extended break from my HP duties, the hustle is back. During the summer time, I used this column as a space to explore some of my more esoteric beliefs regarding basketball: Questions regarding the body, aesthetics, radical politics, and other topics that seem surprisingly out of line with the tone and style of the Paroxysm. So, ladies and gentlemen, after countless conversations with the imitable Matt Moore, I have decided to get back to basics.

The original purpose of this column was to praise a certain style of basketball. As I mentioned in my very first post for HP, I was raised a Knicks fan. Under the tutelage of Charles Oakley and Larry Johnson, I came to believe basketball was not a game for the faint of heart. It required a special kind of grit. If a man came into your lane, he better be prepared to get mugged on his way to the hoop. If a loose ball was sliding across the floor, it would take a brick wall to keep you from snagging it. For those of us who love our hoops a tad bit rough and tumble, the mid-to-late nineties were heady times.

But those halcyon days have passed. We live in a land of flops and ticky-tack fouls. But on the periphery exists a class of player who remembers that basketball is supposed to be a man’s game: I call them “hustle junkies.” Embracing a style that is rugged and raw, they carry on the grand tradition of Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone, and Bill Laimbeer.

Once a week here at HP we will crown one of these men as “HustleJunkie Player of the Week.” I am proud to announce that our first ever HustleJunkie Player of the Week is Jeff Green of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It’s becoming cliche to say the Thunder are a joy to watch this season but only because it is true. It’s not just that they play with reckless abandon because they have nothing to lose. It’s because their perfectly imperfect composition features such wonderfully different styles of ball. You have the wildly precocious grace of Kevin Durant, the unbridled athleticism of Russell Westbrook, and the piston-powered tenacity of Mr. Green.

So why Green this week? It’s not just because he has been averaging 8.3 rpg over the last 4 games. Or 21.5 ppg on 43% shooting. Or putting in a workman-like 39.4 minutes a night. It’s the manner in which he does so.

When Green plays basketball it is a celebration. His gruff, fearless style is not born of the cynicism or spite that seems to inspire other hustle junkies. His intensity is driven by respect and love: To work any less hard would be to not give the game the thanks it deserves. One day this joy may fade. As the grind of each season takes its toll, Green’s exuberance may lose a bit of its luster. But for the time being his unique combination of innocence and ruggedness have helped make him the first ever HustleJunkie Player of the Week.

Jeff Green: In the spirit of Kermit Washington, we salute you.

Who is Rob Mahoney?

Sure, He’s made you laugh, he’s made you think. Maybe even made you shed a tear every now and then. But how much do any of us really know about the internet’s marquee man of mystery? We here at the Paroxysm dispatched our finest investigative reporters deep into heart of Texas to answer these questions and more. No one could have predicted the horror we would find.

REASONS TO WATCH THE GAMES OF THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION TONIGHT:

Look Ma, No Hands (Toronto at Cleveland):

As in, “Cleveland could beat Toronto at home without even using their hands.” The physics is mind-boggling but it could happen.

Loves to Rock (Minnesota at Indiana):

Al Jefferson. Danny Granger. “GOOD EVENING, INDIANAPOLIS! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?”

One of These Two is Stronger Than the Other (Boston at Philadelphia):

It’s a shame because once upon a time I actually thought the Sixers might contend. Well, everyone makes mistakes.

Surprisingly Good Looking (Milwaukee at New Jersey):

Wait. The Nets and the Bucks are even remotely relevant. Have we been watching the same NBA?

Quit Your Whining (Chicago at Houston):

A little mental toughness could do these boys some good.

Deceptively Cool (San Antonio at Denver):

Somehow a match-up between the most boring team in the NBA and a surefire first round exit has turned into a struggle for second place in the West. Just goes to show you that season previews don’t mean a thing.

As nearly every prominent media outlet has done over the course of the last 24 hours, Slate published a piece commemorating the life and work of John Updike. Penned by John Irving, the reflection focuses on Updike’s belief that “you’re a writer because you can write well, not because of your subject.” For those of us who fancy ourselves sportswriters, there is much to be learned from this recently deceased giant of American letters.

Sports is often considered a pulp topic; a subject saved for the simple-minded and brutish. In news rooms across the country the sports desk is known as the “toy department.” But in Updike we can find inspiration. For Updike, no topic was too banal, no detail superfluous. His characters were often uninspired, wheel-spinning members of the middle class and yet the richness of his prose granted their everyday toils the sanctity of prayer. And every so often, his pen stumbled across a basketball court:

Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a back-board bolted to it. legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires. Rabbit Angstrom, coming up the alley in a business suit, stops and watches, though he’s twenty-six and six three. So tall, he seems an unlikely rabbit, but the breadth of white face, the pallor of his blue irises, and a nervous flutter under his brief nose as he stabs a cigarette into his mouth partially explain the nickname, which was given to him when he was a boy. he stands there thinking, the kids keep coming, they keep crowding you up.

The opening paragraph of Rabbit, Run introduces us to Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a former high school basketball star turned salesman whose got an existential crisis bigger than his pregnant wife’s belly. Aside from being one of the most touching testaments to middle class malaise ever written, Rabbit, Run includes some of the finest prose ever crafted regarding the game of basketball.

Updike’s famous Rabbit tetralogy (there are 3 more Rabbit books) is hardly the only place you can find reflections on basketball. In his poems and short stories, tales of auto mechanics dribbling inflated tires and quick-shot carnival games crop up time and time again.

Throughout american literature there are examples of men and women who have let athletics be their muse: The tennis writing of John McPhee and David Foster Wallace; the boxing writing of A.J. Liebling and Joyce Carol Oates; the baseball writing of Bernard Malamud. Updike’s passing casts a hint of sadness over the literary landscape but it is also an opportunity to reflect on how inspirational the games we love have been to so many talented writers. If you have never taken the time to explore the prose of Updike, I encourage you to. Start with the Olinger Stories. They’re a personal favorite.