New Game Ball
After the 2005–06 season, David Stern announced that the league would use a new microfiber ball for the 2006–07 season. The microfiber ball replaced the previously used leather balls. The league claimed the new ball would provide better grip than the leather counterparts, especially when wet from player's sweat. Still the majority of players (notably Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash) expressed dislike for the new ball, saying among other things that it became slippery when wet, bounced awkwardly and gave players cuts.
The largest complaint came from the fact that players had not been consulted before the new ball was put into play. The NBA Players Association filed an unfair labor practice lawsuit against the league because of that fact, subsequently dropping it after the league announced that it would revert to the leather balls starting on January 1, 2007. In a humorous move, the Washington Wizards played a video on the Verizon Center scoreboard welcoming back the "new old ball". Despite complaints, scoring and field goal percentage went up while the microfiber ball was used. Some individual players, however, including Chicago Bulls guard Ben Gordon and then Seattle SuperSonics guard Ray Allen, saw their usually high three-point shooting percentages decline.
A more rigorous study found that while shooting percentages did in fact increase, so did turnover rates.
In the aftermath, Commissioner Stern now says that players will have more input on future decisions.
Read more about this topic: National Basketball Association Controversies
Famous quotes containing the words game and/or ball:
“Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“I don’t like comparisons with football. Baseball is an entirely different game. You can watch a tight, well-played football game, but it isn’t exciting if half the stadium is empty. The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.”
—Bowie Kuhn (b. 1926)