Fansided

Phil Jackson admits that New York Knicks used to deflate balls

BySam Richmond|
Jan 10, 2015; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks president Phil Jackson addresses the media before the start of game against the Charlotte Hornets at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 10, 2015; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks president Phil Jackson addresses the media before the start of game against the Charlotte Hornets at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Phil Jackson admitted that the 1970s New York Knicks used deflated basketballs.

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots aren’t the only ones that like their balls on the lighter side.

More from NBA

Twitter user Todd Radom recently uncovered a 1986 Phil Jackson interview with the Chicago Tribute in which the former New York Knicks player admitted the team used deflated basketballs during his playing days.

From the interview (H/T The New York Post):

"“What we used to do was deflate the ball,” Jackson, a reserve power forward on the Knicks’ second and last title team, says in the story. “We were a short team with our big guys like Willis [Reed], our center, only about 6-8 and Jerry Lucas also 6-8. DeBusschere, 6-6. So what we had to rely on was boxing out and hoping the rebound didn’t go long.“To help ensure that, we’d try to take some air out of the ball. You see, on the ball it says something like ‘inflate to 7 to 9 pounds.’ We’d all carry pins and take the air out to deaden the ball.“It also helped our offense because we were a team that liked to pass the ball without dribbling it, so it didn’t matter how much air was in the ball. It also kept other teams from running on us because when they’d dribble the ball, it wouldn’t come up so fast.”"

This is certainly a funny wrinkle to the Patriots’ Deflategate saga that is captivated the sports world for the past week. Apparently, deflated balls are an asset in more than just football.

However, Jackson made sure to make one thing clear when the nearly 30-year-old interview went viral: his Knicks did not cheat.

This sounds eerily similar to the same defense Tom Brady used — that he liked the Patriots balls to be at the lowest legal PSI — during his now infamous press conference last week. The difference in these situations is obviously that Brady’s Pats were caught using balls with an illegal PSI while Jackson’s Knicks were not.

In today’s NBA, balls must be inflated to a PSI between 7.5 and 8.5.

More from FanSided

Home/NBA