Leather Ball Back!

Its taken a while coming, but the NBA has decided to revert to the old leather ball -- the one that has been used in past seasons. For reasons that were not explained, the NBA brought in a new composite ball this season. The new ball has been reviled for having unpredictable bounce and acting weird overall. Sorry, that was the best way to put it. Sometimes it doesn't bounce hard off the rim, flops into the basket, makes paper cuts on players' palms and is either too slippery or too sticky.

Steve Nash, LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal and Jason Kidd are some of the bigger stars who've expresses their displeasure with the ball. The player's union decided to take legal action against the league last week , on two counts -- the new 'zero tolerance' policy and the composite ball.

Stern had to say this, about reverting to the old ball.
“Our players' response to this particular composite ball has been consistently negative and we are acting accordingly. Although testing performed by Spalding and the NBA demonstrated that the new composite basketball was more consistent than leather, and statistically there has been an improvement in shooting, scoring, and ball-related turnovers, the most important statistic is the view of our players.”

Boy, the man flat out can't admit he was wrong !

I really wonder why they've decided to switch to the old ball now, in the middle of the season. After all, the players have now got used to the new one's random behavior. Even the three point shooting has been getting better and from what I recall, the league shooting average is a few percentage points above last year's. Oh well, the players adjusted to the composite ball within a month, so they should be comfortable with the leather ball by Jan end. I hope.

I guess Stern did not want the 2007 Finals to be decided by some weird bounces. What would the refs do then?

Suns beat Kings, Cassell caught gyrating, Kidd thinks ball is sticky

Allllright! The Suns steamrollered the Kings 111-94 in their pre-season meeting a few minutes back.

Game highlights

• Steve Nash - he's not the 2 time MVP for nothing. He had 6 assists in the first 9 mins of the game.
• Nash finished with a brilliant scoreline on 100% FG shooting.
• 27 mins 6-6 2-2 3-3 13 asts 2 stls 17 pts
• Suns scored just 10 points in 2nd quarter
• Suns then came back to score 43 points in the 3rd qtr
• Shawn Marion - 20 points, 8 rebs
• James Jones rediscovered some of his shooting touch, scoring 15 pts on 5-11 shooting and making 3-7 from 3 pt land
  

Highlights from the Clippers vs Lakers game

• Clippers won 91-90

• Reggie Miller, Cheryl Miller, Steve Kerr - 3 of the 4 who tested the new ball (Mark Jackson was the 4th) were at the game. So they were confronted about the lousy job they'd done of testing the ball.

• - Reggie and Steve both sidestepped the question by saying they only dribbled the ball a little and mainly shot it around for a brief while
• - Steve Kerr had a good suggestion though : there is a problem only when you're sweating, so take it easy and try not to break a sweat

• Sam Cassell was pulled aside by a referee for excessive hollering and warned. It was during a timeout, so the conversation was quite audible.

• ref to Sam Cassell : If we're talking like this, its OK. We won't tolerate it when you wave your hands or gyrate
  
• Steve Kerr and Reggie Miller gave the ref a tough time, joking about his use of the word 'gyration' in this context
  
• Cheryl Miller later spoke to Sam and asked him what he though of the word 'gyration', to which Sam replied

  "I've never heard of that word. I've lived in the East Coast and am in the West Coast now. I haven't heard that word, ever! Not in English..maybe its Russian or something"
  

I say, admit it Cassell : you're an ALIEN. That's why you've never heard that word!

• Seeing a jersey with the name Evans on the floor for the Lakers, Kaman probably deemed it safer to sit out preferring to save his family jewels. Poor chap is so traumatized by the Reggie Evans incident. It never gets old - watch it here. btw, the guy on the floor was Maurice Evans :)
  

Other news:

• How desperate are the Golden State Warriors to do well this season? Don Nelson has been promised $1 mil if GSW make the playoffs , $1 mil if they get to the conference semifinals , $0.5 mil if they get to the conference Finals , $1 mil if they get to the NBA Finals
  

Good luck with that, Warriors.

• Jason Kidd on the new ball:
• He complained that the new ball sticks to the rim.
  

• He even offered a conspiracy theory:

The NBA is probably trying to legalize knocking the ball off the rim, like in international basketball. The ball sticking to the rim will make that easier

• Bulls beat the Spurs 99-67!

• The Spurs scored just 8 points in the 3rd quarter

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