Buzz
To uncover the mystery of how those tiny specks ended up on your basketball, we’ll need to journey back to the sport’s origins, dive into a bit of physics, and take a detour to the leather company that makes those dots possible.
The Physics and Early Design of a Basketball
Ever tried holding a handful of ice cubes, only to have them slip right through your fingers?
This is a result of the lack of friction. When two forces collide, friction is the force that disrupts, slows down, or alters their movement. The more contact points an object has with a surface, the greater the friction. It’s what makes running on concrete pebbles easy and those traction grooves on your snow boots work to prevent you from slipping on ice and landing on your backside.
Without enough friction, things become slippery. In the case of the ice cubes, their smooth, resistant-free surfaces, paired with your undoubtedly moisturized hands, have few contact points to generate friction. According to Newton’s First Law of Motion, the ice cubes remain in motion and, as a result, slip out of your hands and scatter across the kitchen floor.
Such a low level of friction can be useful in certain sports. It’s what allows bowling balls to glide down the lane and gives Sasha Cohen’s figure skating performances their smoothness. But for basketballs? A lack of friction would turn them into bouncing marbles, scattering everywhere.
That’s exactly what the early basketballs were doing all over the court in 1894. Back then, teams used soccer balls. The slick surface of the soccer ball, combined with the polished oil-treated gym floors, created a slippery disaster during games. Players were less concerned with scoring baskets and more focused on trying to keep the ball in their hands.
Luckily, James Naismith, the charismatic P.E. teacher who invented the game in 1891, wasn’t going to let a soccer ball ruin his creation. Naismith reached out to his friend and sporting goods maker, A.G. Spalding, and together they came up with a design for a new ball that would give players better control. They decided the ball should be larger, and it needed an extra element to provide more friction.
This is where the dots come into play.
The dots, paired with a rugged, well-treated leather, create more contact points with the court and increase the friction on the ball. And so, the first pebbled Spalding basketball was born, and players rejoiced: they could now dribble the ball without it flying out of their hands. It was a breakthrough in design that has remained ever since.
The Dots Today
The dots (or 'pebbles' as they’re known in the basketball-making industry) are now featured on every basketball, and the Horween Leather Company has been crafting the NBA’s speckled leather for over 60 years.
Having begun its journey into leather tanning in 1905, Horween Leather entered the sports world through its founders’ passion for football. One of the company’s founders, Arnold Horween Sr., had a deep connection with the Harvard football team. Horween introduced him to George Halas, the founder of the Chicago Bears, who then connected him with the Wilson football company in Chicago. From that point on, it was a destiny tied to football production.
When Wilson and Horween teamed up, Spalding was working with a different leather tanning company to create its basketball leather. However, when that company went bankrupt, Spalding needed a new source of horsehide. Given Horween’s reputation for producing top-notch NFL products, Spalding made the switch. It was a decision that paid off: Horween not only produces all NFL and NBA game balls, but it also remains the only leather tanning company still operating in Chicago.
Horween’s method for crafting that special NBA-certified leather is no simple task. The process includes inspecting, baiting, pickling, tanning, and re-tanning 'in tack' (which means adding essential oils to make the leather more grip-friendly). Afterward, the leather is dried, graded, and pressed into a special mold where the dots are embossed to create each individual pebble. Both basketballs and footballs undergo the same pebbling process (except for Wilson-branded products, which use their own mold).
While the extra points of contact from those tacky pebbles do wonders for modern basketballs, they can’t completely stop the ball from slipping. When playing basketball, you sweat, and sweat makes things slippery. As a result, even the best basketball can sometimes slip right out of your hands.
No shame in that! Even Michael Jordan had sweaty palms. While nothing can guarantee a perfect grip on the ball at all times, a little preparation can go a long way. If you’ve got a fairly new ball, try breaking it in with a few practice games beforehand. The contact with a surface like concrete (which is full of friction-friendly pebbles) helps create a more textured surface on your ball. The rougher the leather, the better the traction. The better the traction, the easier the ball is to control. The easier the ball is to control, the more likely you are to win that game of HORSE with your neighbor (depending on who your neighbor is).
