Master of Their Craft: Phoenix Suns Jared Dudley dominates the world of Twitter

Professional athletes are people too, and Jared Dudley gets addicted to odd things just like you and I.

"On an hourly basis," Dudley said of checking Twitter. "It's like CNN on steroids. I follow people from all over the world, so I get all the updates, from athletes to comedians, different pastors, people from Italy. They're giving everything across the world - and it's addicting."

Jared Dudley started using twitter years ago as a way to interact with fans all over the world, back when twitter was in its infancy. He was a pioneer in this world and now has more than 140,000 followers.

Not only does Jared keep people up on what he's doing, he is one of the few pro athletes that regularly interacts with fans in a two-way conversation. Just check his timeline here. The man is quite prolific.

Dudley says that former Suns guard Jason Richardson introduced him to twitter, and we all know that other former teammates of JD are big on twitter as well: Shaquille O'Neal and Steve Nash.

"What it gives that I didn't have growing up," Dudley told Sam Amick of si.com. "Is you can know what a celebrity or an athlete are doing, to know what their everyday life is, when we're all really doing something that we love to do."

Dudley got introspective about the downside of twitter too.

"For me, personally, I try to deal on Twitter only in positive," he says. "But I think the fans get a little too worked up when it comes to the (NBA) games. Especially in basketball, there's 82 games and if your team loses two or three they want a trade. Then they blow up your timeline. It's 'What happened?' Well, you're playing against other elite athletes.

"I don't let it bother me, because it's just part of life. But if you can't handle it mentally, then Twitter might not be for you. There are going to be fans who say rude, disrespectful things. Sometimes you can retweet it, and try to put that fan on blast and kill them with kindness. But it can get to you depending on how disrespectful people can be."

Check out the whole article in either of the links above. Dudley really explains the pluses and minuses very well.

When the NBA is on haitus during the summer, following guys on twitter can give you insight into what they're doing to get better for the next season - positively or negatively.

Our own Leiland Tanner (former writer and commenter extraordinaire) wrote a piece on Dudley for BSotS last summer so people could get some insight on Jared.

Now call me a stalker - or maybe we're just really starved for Suns related news... but I scoured over every single @JaredDudley619 tweet since the final game of last season.

Dudley came in 7th in the 2012 "Tweeter of the Year" contest on hoopshype.com for 2012 after finishing 4th the year before. Being on a bad team can do that to you.

So maybe Dudley isn't the very best in the entire league on twitter, and certainly doesn't compare to the best in the world, but he's the best we've got in Phoenix and in my book is Master of his Craft.

*SB Nation is sponsoring a whole series across all NBA teams as well as other sports today, with every team site picking a Master of their Craft recipient. If you have someone else who should have won, for any skill, put it in the comments!