Flippin off the Wall like Lucy Ball

The Spark leaves the Internet for 5 minutes and *blamn* Mark Stein suggests an end to the era of round ball version 2.0:

In the latest strong signal that commissioner David Stern is seriously considering a ball swap just three months into the new microfiber composite ball's first season, league sources tell ESPN.com that all 30 teams were due to received calls by Friday from Stern staffers. NBA officials want to know how many leather balls each team has in storage from last season, in case the decision to switch comes quickly.

Teams were allotted 75 new synthetic basketballs at the start of the season, but Stern has acknowledged that the cuts various players are suffering while handling the microfiber version could force him to make a surprising in-season recall of the old ball . . . which might include emergency orders with Spalding for teams that have little or nothing left from last season's leather shipment.

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I, for one, will welcome an end to the recent proliferation of orange scapegoatism. While we're at it, let's hope the Commish decommissions asterisks as well. Brothers have been dropping them on these pages like they're Al Uderzo... or something.