Spalding defends its new NBA basketball
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
With Shaquille O'Neal and others grumbling about its new basketball, Spalding yesterday denied it threw up a synthetic air ball.
National Basketball Association players are bemoaning Spalding's new ball as slippery and inferior to the old leather ball they've dribbled and shot with for decades.
To much fanfare, Springfield-based Spalding and the NBA announced earlier this year that the league would switch this season to a new microfiber-composite basketball - with fewer grooves - from the classic leather-covered ball of yore.
But some NBA players, now gearing up for the upcoming 2006-2007 season, are harshly criticizing the official new NBA game ball as hard to handle when wet from sweat - and weird to shoot without as many grooves.
Shaq has already said the league should fire whoever came up with the idea to replace the leather-bound basketball.
"Terrible," Detroit's Rasheed Wallace was quoted as saying.
The Celtic's Paul Pierce, though, has defended the ball, saying he used it this summer and has adjusted to its small differences. Then again, Pierce has endorsement ties to Spalding.
"It's like the old outdoor-indoor ball you played with when you were on the playground. It's grippy - I like that about it, Celtics point guard Sebastian Telfair said last night. "It just doesn't feel smooth coming off your fingertips when you shoot."
The complaining has been loud enough for NBA commissioner David Stern to say this past weekend that the league will closely monitor the situation and, if the complaints prove true, might go back to the original leather.
That has folks in Springfield scrambling.
Asked if there's a possibility the leather ball might be brought back, Spalding marketing chief Dan Touhey said, "I don't think that will be necessary."
"Players don't like change," said Touhey, insisting the new ball is better and actually less slippery. The ball was tested in summer leagues by NBA players - and developed over the past two years.
College and high-school teams regularly used microfiber-composite balls - and NBA players just need time to adjust, he said.
"It's a far superior ball," said Touhey, who estimated Spalding, a unit of the Russell Corp., spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing the product.
As part of its NBA deal, Spalding provides the league with about 2,200 balls a year. The new ball costs about 5 percent less to make, but the NBA has said the old leather balls took longer to break in than synthetic-covered ones.