ESPN (Ric Bucher) reports: The NBA will use leather basketballs in its developmental league next season, temporarily ending its attempts to re-introduce a composite ball at the NBA level, a league official has confirmed. “We are committed to leather for the foreseeable future,” said league spokesman Tim Frank. “We just realized leather is what our guys wanted.” … The D League will begin next season using an eight-paneled leather ball and then switch to a two-paneled version sometime around midseason, Frank said.

InsideHoops.com editor says: The old composite ball felt good to hold, but was rough on the hands, and changed for the worse when wet. I hope they just stick with the leather forever.

Mavs Courtisde View (official team blog by Art Garcia) reports: To help celebrate its 10th year, NBA TV is offering up a free preview week and a new interactive feature called Fan Night. For the first time ever, fans will have the chance to vote for games they want to see televised nationally on NBA TV each Tuesday night. “We’re proud to launch the new NBA season on NBA TV and NBA.com with the introduction of Fan Night, a landmark multi-platform experience that takes fan interactivity to an unprecedented level,” said Bryan Perez, SVP and GM of NBA Digital. “This is a great example of our commitment to increase fan involvement and take full advantage of all our platforms in an integrated manner. Fans voting online to consistently program a major, national sports network pushes the boundaries of sports digital media.”

True Blue Pistons (official team blog by Keith Langlois) reports: It’s appearing more and more likely that the Pistons will open training camp with 14 players under contract, one under the league maximum. That’s Joe Dumars’ preferred mode, giving him roster flexibility as the season unfolds in the event of injury or opportunity to add a veteran free agent – maybe one who gets bought out, a la Chris Webber two seasons ago, or someone who comes out of retirement late in the season for a playoff run – to fill a niche role.

Kobe Bryant needs surgery to fix ligament damage in his right pinkie finger. This has been known for a long time.

For reasons I cannot even guess, he still hasn’t had the surgery, and is instead just making announcements. First he made an announcement as to when he’ll announce what he’s doing to do about the surgery. Now he’s announced that he will have the surgery, and announced that he will announce a date, sometime soon.

What the hell is going on?

Am I missing something?

Is there a medical reason for not having the surgery as quickly as possible? If so, I haven’t seen it mentioned by anyone covering this. It’s just weird.

Training camps open in a bit over three weeks.

–Jeff

The National Basketball League (NBL) has fined the Melbourne Tigers team $4,000 for playing import Ebi Ere in a pre-season game without an international clearance.

Ere suited up for the Tigers in their 125-106 pre-season win over the Townsville Crocodiles at the Mackay Basketball Stadium in Queensland on Saturday 6 September.

NBL interim Chief Executive Officer Chuck Harmison said that Ere played without obtaining the necessary Foreign Player Licence and International Clearance, and as a result the Tigers had been fined by the League.

“It’s a fairly basic rule that all import players need to get the necessary clearances from FIBA before playing for their new team, and unfortunately the Tigers failed to obtain these on Ere’s behalf before playing him on Saturday night,” said Harmison. “As a result, we were left with no alternative other than to impose sanctions against the Tigers.”

“As the infraction occurred in a pre-season game, we felt a fine was appropriate in this instance,” Harmison added. “If this had been a regular season game, they would potentially have faced the loss of competition points as well as a significantly larger fine, so this is a serious breach on their behalf.”