Reply #14: A big part of the players' grievance [View All]

was that even though the league sent every player a ball when the change was decided upon, they didn't solicit the opinions of the players while testing it.

The people they gave it to to test-shoot it were two retired players - Reggie Miller and Steve Kerr. From what I heard, Reggie and Kerr got to shoot with the new ball for an hour one day at MSG. The decision to go with the new ball was pretty much strictly based on feedback from two retired players - and I'm pretty sure that Reggie would be happy putting up shots with a volleyball or soccer ball. :)

I think that a big reason for the 'outrage' (if you can call it that) over the new ball is that it amounted to a unilateral decision by Stern, getting pretty much no input whatsoever from the players.

(I was talking to a friend the other day about this whole thing, and my friend had a great line - 'Who handled the whole thing with the new ball - Halliburton??')

- as