Scientific analysis of new ball
I love Mark Cuban and I love science. These are his words:
I asked the University of Texas at Arlington Physics department to take a look at both the new and old NBA basketballs. I asked them to compare the 2 and let me know what they thought. No preconceived notions. No prejudice. Just science.
Below is their data and response. Before you get to it, i wanted to give my conclusions.
1. Keep the ball. Its not perfect, but it would create more hassles than it solves to change.
2. Check every floor in the NBA for "dead spots" and make sure the floors are consistent. This ball will be more impacted by soft spots on the floor.
3. Rather than waiting to see how moisture impacts play and if it creates turnovers, recognize the properties and advantages of the ball, that it is the same regardless of how old or new, and change out the balls at halftime, at the end of quarters, or when it gets wet. Just like they do in baseball and football.
4. The balls retain dirt. Lots of it. By the end of a game or two, the nets look like there have geen kids throwing dirt at them. We need to find a way to keep the balls clean and let every team know so if a fan touches one after a game they dont get grossed out. Changing the balls can help alleviate this problem.
5. AFter this season, look at the embossing and layout on the ball and see if there is a better option. This will make the new ball bounce "true" when compared to the old ball.
Here is the report and a big THANK YOU to UTA and all the hard work they did. They are a first class program and did a wonderfully thorough job: