Euroleague
06-08-2015, 08:04 PM
Phil Jackson and Shaq both admitted to ball deflation in order to help win championships.....
http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2015/story/_/id/13030284/nba-playoffs-game-ball-road-nba-finals
The footballs didn't have enough air, and the NFL believed the New England Patriots -- and specifically star quarterback Tom Brady -- were to blame, all part of a scheme to gain an edge. So the league dropped the hammer, suspending him, fining the team and revoking draft picks in order to protect "the integrity of the game."
But long before "Deflategate," the practice of putting extra air in or letting it out of a game ball -- beyond the regulated amount -- was used by some of the NBA's biggest teams and stars.
Take Shaquille O'Neal, for instance.
"Sometimes, in the games during all my championship runs, if a ball was too hard, I let air out," the former All-Star center said in a recent episode of "The Big Podcast With Shaq." "I'd have a needle. A friend of mine would have a needle and I would get the game ball. ... I needed that extra grip, but I wasn't doing that for cheating purposes. I just needed the extra grip for my hands so I could palm it, a la Michael Jordan, the way he used to palm it.
O'Neal said he'd walk up to the ball rack before a game, "Get the ball, 'Tsssss' let a little bit of air out, squeeze it -- OK, good."
Was he cheating? He believes not.
"Because, first of all, I'm not aware of any letter of the law that says, you can't let air out of the ball," O'Neal said. "I'm not aware of that. Second of all, it's all about my [comfort level]. A lot of times, if the balls have too much air in them, they're too bouncy. I didn't want them to be bouncy. I needed that grip."
His teammates didn't complain, either, he said.
"No," he said, "especially when you're winning,"
O'Neal wasn't the first to follow that practice. Phil Jackson said he did so during his playing days with the early 1970s New York Knicks, including on their 1973 title team.
"What we used to do was deflate the ball," the Hall of Fame coach told the Chicago Tribune in a story published in 1986. "We were a short team with our big guys like Willis [Reed], our center, only about 6-8 and Jerry Lucas also 6-8, [Dave] DeBusschere, 6-6. So what we had to rely on was boxing out and hoping the rebound didn't go long.
"To help ensure that, we'd try to take some air out of the ball. You see, on the ball it says something like 'inflate to 7 to 9 pounds.' We'd all carry pins and take the air out to deaden the ball.
"It also helped our offense because we were a team that liked to pass the ball without dribbling it, so it didn't matter how much air was in the ball. It also kept other teams from running on us because when they'd dribble the ball, it wouldn't come up so fast."
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:lol :oldlol: :roll:
http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2015/story/_/id/13030284/nba-playoffs-game-ball-road-nba-finals
The footballs didn't have enough air, and the NFL believed the New England Patriots -- and specifically star quarterback Tom Brady -- were to blame, all part of a scheme to gain an edge. So the league dropped the hammer, suspending him, fining the team and revoking draft picks in order to protect "the integrity of the game."
But long before "Deflategate," the practice of putting extra air in or letting it out of a game ball -- beyond the regulated amount -- was used by some of the NBA's biggest teams and stars.
Take Shaquille O'Neal, for instance.
"Sometimes, in the games during all my championship runs, if a ball was too hard, I let air out," the former All-Star center said in a recent episode of "The Big Podcast With Shaq." "I'd have a needle. A friend of mine would have a needle and I would get the game ball. ... I needed that extra grip, but I wasn't doing that for cheating purposes. I just needed the extra grip for my hands so I could palm it, a la Michael Jordan, the way he used to palm it.
O'Neal said he'd walk up to the ball rack before a game, "Get the ball, 'Tsssss' let a little bit of air out, squeeze it -- OK, good."
Was he cheating? He believes not.
"Because, first of all, I'm not aware of any letter of the law that says, you can't let air out of the ball," O'Neal said. "I'm not aware of that. Second of all, it's all about my [comfort level]. A lot of times, if the balls have too much air in them, they're too bouncy. I didn't want them to be bouncy. I needed that grip."
His teammates didn't complain, either, he said.
"No," he said, "especially when you're winning,"
O'Neal wasn't the first to follow that practice. Phil Jackson said he did so during his playing days with the early 1970s New York Knicks, including on their 1973 title team.
"What we used to do was deflate the ball," the Hall of Fame coach told the Chicago Tribune in a story published in 1986. "We were a short team with our big guys like Willis [Reed], our center, only about 6-8 and Jerry Lucas also 6-8, [Dave] DeBusschere, 6-6. So what we had to rely on was boxing out and hoping the rebound didn't go long.
"To help ensure that, we'd try to take some air out of the ball. You see, on the ball it says something like 'inflate to 7 to 9 pounds.' We'd all carry pins and take the air out to deaden the ball.
"It also helped our offense because we were a team that liked to pass the ball without dribbling it, so it didn't matter how much air was in the ball. It also kept other teams from running on us because when they'd dribble the ball, it wouldn't come up so fast."
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:lol :oldlol: :roll: