Tom Brady is appealing the four-game suspension he was handed by the NFL for his part in the New England Patriots' alleged deflation of footballs in this year's AFC Championship game, and perhaps he should cite historical precedent in pleading his case.
Turns out, ball deflation has been common practice in the NBA since before Brady was born, continuing unchecked until at least as recently as the Los Angeles Lakers' championship three-peat in the early aughts.
In a feature on the lives and travels of official NBA basketballs published on Monday, ESPN's Baxter Holmes digs into the history of deflation in the league, going as far back as the early 1970s. Back then, Phil Jackson's New York Knicks teams used to let some air out of the game ball to give them a tactical advantage.
Here's what Jackson said in 1986, as relayed by Holmes:
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.
A few decades later, when Jackson was coaching the Lakers to three titles, his superstar center adopted the practice.
"Sometimes, in the games during all my championship runs, if a ball was too hard, I let air out," Shaquille O'Neal - now a co-host on TNT's "Inside the NBA" - said in a recent podcast, according to Holmes.
"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."
So, to summarize: Shaq wasn't cheating, he was just using subterfuge to give himself a competitive advantage that he wouldn't have been able to achieve otherwise.
In truth, though, it is difficult to label such gamesmanship cheating, since the rules regarding game-ball pressure were apparently either vague or non-existent until recently.
Writes Holmes:
A league spokesman said he was unaware of any punishments handed down at any point through the years for any players inflating or deflating a game ball, and that it's unclear when rules regarding the mandated PSI (pounds per square inch) for a game ball were put in place.
The current rules state that home team's equipment managers or ball boys take three basketballs to the official's locker room prior to a game. There, the balls are inspected for wear and tear and ensured that they comply with the NBA-approved ball pressure of between 7 ½ to 8 ½ PSI.
...
Game officials have also been provided with portable air gauges to carry with them to each of their assigned games.
As Eric Housen, the longtime Golden State Warriors equipment and travel manager explains: "The opportunities for new game ball stories are gone, because everything has become more homogenous."
