By Anthony Gharib, 2026-06-05 22:23:00
NBA最宏大舞台上的主角总是很容易辨认。今年，这里有维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 和杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson)。有马刺的吉祥物“小野狼” (Coyote) 和斯派克·李 (Spike Lee)。有观众席上的前尼克斯和前马刺球员。有主教练迈克·布朗 (Mike Brown) 和米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson)。当然，还有坐在场边的纽约明星拥趸。
但是，每届NBA总决赛中，最容易被忽视却又可以说是最重要的配角是什么？那颗29.5英寸、威尔胜 (Wilson) 品牌官方制造的100%真皮篮球。
卡尔-安东尼·唐斯 (Karl-Anthony Towns) 会在空中将其揽入怀中。斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle) 可能会用一记暴扣将其砸进篮筐。乔什·哈特 (Josh Hart) 肯定会飞身扑向观众席去争夺它。达龙·福克斯 (De’Aaron Fox) 则会运着它在球场上疾驰。
随着纽约尼克斯和圣安东尼奥马刺在2026年NBA总决赛中交锋（第二场将于周五进行），比赛中使用的篮球在抵达弗罗斯特银行中心和麦迪逊广场花园之前，都经历了一段曲折的旅程。实际上，它们已经在整个NBA的木地板上弹跳击打了数月之久。
联盟正是通过这种方式，来确保在这个最伟大的舞台上，篮球能拥有最完美的弹力与触感。
每年一月，NBA都会向所有30支球队发送四颗印有总决赛标志的篮球。任务很简单：在联盟回收并重新分配这些球用于总决赛之前，将它们“磨合”好。
“显然，这是我们最关键的系列赛。因此，你希望球员们能使用——我一直用‘达到比赛状态’这个词，但确实是达到比赛状态的篮球，这与刚拆箱的新球是不同的，”NBA球场与品牌合作伙伴关系主管克里斯托弗·阿雷纳 (Christopher Arena) 告诉ESPN。
与斯伯丁 (Spalding) 类似，威尔胜使用的皮革由芝加哥的霍尔文皮革公司 (Horween Leather Company) 提供。但在2021-22赛季威尔胜成为NBA官方比赛用球供应商时，出现了一个关键的区别。
在斯伯丁时代，使用过的比赛用球会被送回，以便用激光雕刻上NBA总决赛的字样。而威尔胜的总决赛用球则是提前制作完成，并提前数月分发给各支球队进行磨合。
威尔胜在俄亥俄州阿达市的工厂有一套流程，阿雷纳表示联盟称之为“唤醒球的缠线”。威尔胜会用一台机器快速运球来预先平衡它们，同时用另一台机器将它们砸向木板。
但没有任何东西能替代来自球员、球场和环境的汗水、油脂和尘土。
杰伦·布伦森手中的篮球已经飞行了数千英里。它是分发到整个NBA的数十颗总决赛标志篮球之一。 杰弗里·沙默斯 (Gregory Shamus)/盖蒂图片社
皮革的独特之处在于它是一种源自生物的有机材料（在NBA的案例中，皮革来自牛皮）。因此，它有一个自然的熟化过程，在时尚界被称为“包浆” (patina)——这是一种体面的说法，实际上就是指它会留下污渍和痕迹。
“这些元素在某种程度上能磨合篮球。它会让球的颜色变深，随着时间的推移，还会让球变得更有黏性（更黏手），”阿雷纳说道。“因此，这需要时间，取决于你问的是谁以及使用了多少次，大约需要三到四周的时间才能达到最佳状态。”
阿雷纳补充道，联盟中的任何一位装备经理都会解释说，老将们是不会用新球打球的。这个任务落在了新秀、发展联盟（G-League）球员或球童身上。尼克斯和马刺的装备经理未接受本次采访。
与那些“由手感像皮革的合成材料制成”的合成纤维篮球不同，NBA官方比赛用球使用的是真皮。
南加州大学教授基南·达夫蒂 (Keanan Duffty) 告诉ESPN，皮革也并不总是需要磨合。
作为美国时装设计师协会 (CFDA) 的成员，达夫蒂解释了磨合篮球的过程，这“非常具有实用性，非常讲求实际”。
“皮革会对湿度产生反应……它会拉伸。根据环境温度的不同，它的表现也会发生变化。所以我想篮球运动员不希望在球场上被这些变化所惊扰，”达夫蒂说道。“他们希望球经历这个被使用的过程，这样他们就能知道当他们真正踏上赛场时，球会呈现出怎样的状态。”
篮球每次弹跳都会拉伸，经历一个熟化的过程。皮革会自然变软，而它在撞击地面时承受的压力也会促使其变软。
水分以一种独特的方式影响着这一过程。达夫蒂解释说，球在接触地板或篮筐时所产生的摩擦力，会根据球皮中的水分含量而改变。随着比赛的进行，接触球的人越来越多，水分也会增加，从而导致球的表现发生变化。
所有这些因素都为球员带来了更理想的比赛体验，这在备受瞩目的NBA总决赛舞台上尤为重要。
“如果你把新球从箱子里拿出来……然后投篮一个小时，你的指尖就会流血，因为皮革表面的缝线太新了，”金州勇士队时任装备与旅行经理埃里克·豪森 (Eric Housen) 曾告诉ESPN在2015年的采访中说道。
联盟信任所有30支球队，让他们以自己的方式来进行这一磨合过程。
大多数时候，这些篮球都处于公众视线之外。但偶尔它们也会在公开场合露面，当人们发现有球队在季后赛开始前就用NBA总决赛用球进行投篮热身时，就会构成一幅罕见而奇特的画面。
有人在那个赛季丹佛掘金的一场比赛中看到了2025年总决赛系列赛的用球，引发了人们关于NBA“泄露剧本”的猜测。而2024年总决赛版本的用球则在当年3月孟菲斯灰熊的一场赛前热身中被发现。
灰熊队在热身时使用的是2024年NBA总决赛用球。有时候你必须眼见为实？pic.twitter.com/WdcxtYkOgP
— 戴夫·麦克梅纳明 (Dave McMenamin) (@ mcten) 2024年3月27日
“大多数时候，我认为装备经理们在尽力把球留在训练馆这方面做得很好。这其实并不是什么秘密，”他说道。“这又不是世界末日。只是在3月2日星期二的比赛场地上看到它，感觉有点奇怪，你懂吧？”
一旦某支球队无缘季后赛争夺或在季后赛中被淘汰，他们就会开始将自己的总决赛用球寄回给NBA，联盟会按东西部赛区对它们进行归类。
走到最后阶段的两支球队会保留自己的篮球。联盟会补充其余的球，以便在比赛和训练馆中能填满一个球架。这个总数会达到38颗。
“在四月和五月期间，我们一直在收集这些球。一旦我们知道谁是打进总决赛的东、西部球队，我们就会立刻把球运送给他们，”阿雷纳说道。“当系列赛打到第六场或第七场，且赛程转换非常紧凑时，这会很有挑战性，因为我们希望他们能尽快用上这些球。”
2026年马刺与俄克拉荷马雷霆之间的西部决赛就是一个很好的例子。
当雷霆在系列赛中以3-2领先时，NBA将总决赛用球送到了俄克拉荷马城。这样一来，如果雷霆淘汰马刺，他们回到主场后就能立刻用上。如果圣安东尼奥将系列赛拖入抢七，由于系列赛将回到俄克拉荷马城，无论谁获胜，这些篮球都已准备就绪。
马刺在抢七大战中胜出，在他们准备启程时，还剩下一项任务：带走那些篮球。俄克拉荷马城的装备经理将球移交给了圣安东尼奥，后者将它们带上了飞机。
“我们希望最大限度地延长他们使用这些篮球的时间，因为我们知道这些就是他们将在NBA总决赛中使用的球，”阿雷纳说道。
这是通往拉里·奥布莱恩杯征途中，又一次至关重要的弹跳。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：The path of a Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals basketball starts with all 30 teams
The path of a Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals basketball starts with all 30 teams
The cast of the NBA’s grandest stage is always easy to identify. This year, there’s Victor Wembanyama and Jalen Brunson. The Spurs’ Coyote and Spike Lee. The ex-Knicks and Spurs in the crowd. Head coaches Mike Brown and Mitch Johnson. And of course, New York’s celebrity fans courtside.
But, the most avoidable yet arguably important supporting character of each NBA Finals? The 29.5-inch official Wilson-branded 100% genuine leather cover basketball.
Karl-Anthony Towns will grab it from the air. Stephon Castle could punch it through the basket. Josh Hart surely will dive in the stands to secure it. De’Aaron Fox can dash up the floor while dribbling it.
As New York and San Antonio face off in the 2026 NBA Finals (Game 2 on Friday) the basketballs in action have all had a winding trip to Frost Bank Center and Madison Square Garden. They’ve actually been thudding off the hardwood for months across the NBA.
It’s how the league makes sure the game’s biggest stage has the right bounces.
Every January, the NBA sends four Finals-branded basketballs to all 30 teams. The mission is simple: Break them in before the league collects and redistributes them for the NBA Finals.
“Obviously, this is the most pivotal series of games we have. And so, you want them to have, I keep using game-ready, but game-ready basketballs which is different than out-of-the-box basketballs,” Christopher Arena, the NBA’s head of on-court and brand partnerships, told ESPN.
Similar to Spalding, Wilson uses leather supplied by Chicago’s Horween Leather Company. But one key difference emerged when Wilson became the NBA’s official ball provider in the 2021-22 season.
Under Spalding, used game balls were sent back to be laser-engraved with the NBA Finals script. Wilson’s Finals basketballs are pre-produced and distributed to teams months in advance to be broken in.
Wilson has a protocol at their Ada, Ohio, facility that Arena said the league calls “waking the windings of the ball.” Wilson pre-balances them on a machine that dribbles rapidly, while another sends them against a wooden panel.
But there’s nothing to substitute sweat, oils and dirt that can come from a player, court and environment.
The basketball in Jalen Brunson’s hands has already traveled thousands of miles. It was one of dozens of Finals-branded basketballs distributed across the NBA. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
What makes leather unique is that it’s an organic material derived from a living thing (in the NBA’s case, the leather comes from cowhides). Therefore, there’s a natural aging process, referred to in the fashion industry as “patina” – a fancy way of saying it gets stained.
“Those elements sort of break the ball in. It gives it its darker color. It gives it a little bit more tack over time,” Arena said. “And so, it takes, depending on who you ask and how much play, like three to four weeks to get that right.”
Any equipment manager around the league will explain that the veterans won’t play with the new balls, Arena added. The job falls to rookies, G-League players or ball attendants. The Knicks’ and Spurs’ equipment managers were not made available for this story.
Unlike composite basketballs that are “made of synthetically produced material that feels like leather,” the NBA’s official game ball uses genuine leather.
Leather doesn’t always have to be broken in either, Keanan Duffty, a professor at the University of Southern California, told ESPN.
Duffty, a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, explained the process of breaking in a basketball, which is "very much a utility. It’s very practical.
“Leather reacts to humidity. … It can stretch. Depending on the heat in its environment, it can change the way it behaves. So I would think that basketball players don’t want to be surprised by that on the court,” Duffty said. “They want it to go through this process of being utilized so they know how it’s going to behave when they’re actually on the court for a game.”
Every time a ball bounces, it stretches, going through an aging process. Leather naturally softens, but the pressure it endures while hitting the court can cause it to soften, too.
Moisture impacts that process in a unique way. The friction that a ball goes through when feeling the court or rim would change according to the moisture in the skin of the ball, Duffty explained. The moisture too increases over time of a game with more people touching the ball, resulting in a different behavior.
All of these factors lead to a preferred game experience for the players, especially important on the heightened stage of the NBA Finals.
“If you take the new balls out of the box … and you shoot for an hour, the tips of your fingers will be bloody, just because the thread is so new,” the Golden State Warriors’ then-equipment/travel manager Eric Housen told ESPN in 2015.
The league entrusts all 30 of its teams to approach the process their own way.
Most of the time, those basketballs remain hidden from public view. But occasionally they surface in the open, creating a rare, bizarre scene when teams are spotted shooting around with an NBA Finals basketball before the playoffs.
Someone saw basketballs for the 2025 series at a Denver Nuggets game that season, prompting theories that the NBA had “leaked its script.” A 2024 version was found during warmups at a Memphis Grizzlies game in March of that year.
2024 NBA Finals balls being used by the Grizzlies during warmups. Sometimes you got to see it to believe it? pic.twitter.com/WdcxtYkOgP
— Dave McMenamin (@ mcten) March 27, 2024
“Most of the time, I think the equipment managers are really good about trying to keep it in the practice facility. And it’s not a secret,” he said. “Like, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a little weird to have it on a court on March 2 on a Tuesday, you know?”
The minute a team is eliminated from postseason contention or in the playoffs, they will begin sending the their Finals basketballs back to the NBA, and the league will designate them by conference.
The teams at the last stage keep their own basketballs. The league supplements the rest so that it can hopefully fill up a rack in a game and practice facility. That total reaches 38 basketballs.
“Through the months of April, May, we are just collecting them. And then as soon as we know who the Western, Eastern Conference participants are in the Finals, we ship them right to them,” Arena said. “It’s challenging when you get to Game 6s and 7s and there’s a tight turnaround because we want them playing with them ASAP.”
Case in point: the 2026 Western Conference finals between the Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder.
With the Thunder up 3-2 in the series, the NBA sent Finals basketballs to Oklahoma City. Therefore, if the Thunder closed out the Spurs, they had theirs ready once they landed back home. If San Antonio sent it to seven, the basketballs would be ready for either team regardless of the winner since the series shifted to Oklahoma City.
The Spurs won in Game 7 and as they prepared to depart, one task remained: grabbing the basketballs. Oklahoma City’s equipment manager handed them to San Antonio, which took them on the plane.
“We wanted to maximize the amount of time they had to play with those basketballs, knowing those were going to be the balls they were going to play the NBA Finals with,” Arena said.
One more important bounce en route to the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
By Anthony Gharib, via ESPN