As far as the Mavericks are concerned, the NBA can take its new ball and go home.

The league decided to change official basketballs this season, replacing the pebbled, leather spheres with a microfiber composite ball that is getting widely ripped.

"They stink," guard Jason Terry said of the new ball. "I've worked out with it all summer long, and I've grown accustomed to losing the ball out of bounds a couple times. It's going to happen."

The ball has the look and feel of an indoor-outdoor ball, Terry said. And he's not the only one who has had trouble holding onto it.

"Dirk [Nowitzki] had two or three layups [in practice] and they just popped right out of his hands," Terry said.

Nowitzki, one of the NBA's biggest stars, gave a succinct impression of the new ball: a thumb's-down signal.