Not only is Tom Brady accused of being a cheater, now it appears that even if he is, he's not very original.
The Sportress of Blogitude reported Wednesday that Zen master Phil Jackson not only was part of a 1973 deflating scheme, but he copped to it.
The website uncovered an article in the Chicago Tribune that the Bangor Daily News reprinted in December of 1986, thanks to a tweet by a graphic designer and self-proclaimed "visual historian" by the name of Todd Radom.
Phil Jackson, quoted in 1986, saying that championship New York Knicks teams intentionally deflated basketballs: pic.twitter.com/wJqAnC6fRQ
— Todd Radom (@ToddRadom) January 28, 2015
In it, Jackson, who was a member of the New York Knicks NBA championship team, said years later when he was coach of the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association that the team would have air needles in tow to deaden basketballs.
"What we used to do was deflate the ball," Jackson, a reserve power forward on the Knicks' second and most recent title team, said 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."
Jackson, now the Knicks' team president, took to Twitter to clarify that the team didn't break the rules, only that it deflated the balls to the lowest acceptable range - suggesting the unlikely notion that the team checked the pressure after completing the deadening process.
joy of tweet is correcting errors. Knicks used under inflated balls. wrong! ball has7-9lbs psi. we wanted 7 psi softer but not illegal. — Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) January 28, 2015
Unlikely because of further details from the New York Post that former team broadcaster Marv Albert and Hall of Fame guard Walt Frazier said that Knick Bill Bradley was what the Post described as the "ringleader of the ball deflation."
The 1986 article made no mention of Jackson saying that the Knicks stayed within the rules then.
So it stands to reason that Brady and/or the Patriots could've knowingly broken the rules now. As could a lot of other NFL teams.
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