Thursday, October 05, 2006
Draft #150
Soap Box
Now while I've never actually played in the NBA and have little knowledge about the ball that this league has been using throughout the past 35 years, I am in fact, apalled at the decision NBA higher-ups made recently to change from a leather ball to the microfiber composite model being pushed for this upcoming season.
This new ball is supposed to have better grip according to the douche wads that produced this pile of refuse. Grip is great when you're talking about footballs, but this is basketball. As any pure shooter can attest to, maximum grip doesn't make for optimal performance. Shooters are instructed to have a soft touch, and you want the ball to release off of your fingers will a smooth backspin. You won't find "make sure to squeeze the shit out of the ball" on any of the steps on how to shoot a jump shot.
Leather is better in almost any walk of life. Whether it's the interior of your car, your living room furniture, or even when it comes to the material used to make your assless chaps, leather is better. I'll choose a material that is six or less degrees away from pork rinds any day of the week over a cheap pathetic material like microfiber.
If I ever catch a group of kids using this shoddy $199.99 product in a playground, I will immediately walk up to them and stab their ball with a knife and lecture all of them on the benefits that leather has to offer as the air, from the ultra inferior product they chose to use, seeps out at an uncomfortably slow pace. If they start bitching and moaning at me, declaring that their daddy bought that ball for them, I will simply tell them that their father is an alcoholic and that they should thank me for doing them a favor because that ball is a piece of shit.
The early word on this product from NBA players is that the ball becomes very slippery once it gets wet. Laker forward Lamar Odom declared that this ball is the biggest abomination to hit the league since Kelly Tripucka's hairdo. Why would a ball praised for having superior grip become slippery after encountering a bit of moisture? I know of something else that gets slippery when wet and much like this new ball, it sometimes stinks, badly, as in someone forgot to the change the water in the dead fish aquarium. But unlike this "thing" I'm referring to, there's no amount of water and/or vinegar that can rid this new ball of its foul stench.
And while this may be the worst product in the history of western civilization, what pains me the most is all the kids who will be robbed of the dream that someday they will play in the NBA and have the privilege of toting the same rock that legends like Marty Conlon, Alton Lister, and Tree Rollins once handled. For those of us that fear change, the death of the leather basketball is an unwelcomed reality. And we can only pray that with its passing, the integrity of the game wasn't taken with it.
# posted by hucklebuck @ 1:08 PM 
