Many have compared NCAA’s shirt selection rules (student-level basketball tournament system in the US) to explain this. NCAA players must not use 6, 7, 8 and 9 tail numbers in dozens. This is a rule that college basketball players in America have to follow for many years.

Unwritten Law

In contrast to the NBA, the NCAA has specific rules regarding the use of jerseys.

Specifically, the numbers that are counted as valid include 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 00, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30 , 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55. In addition, a team is not allowed to own the same number of shirts 0 and 00.

This makes the numbers from 6 to 9, 16 to 19, 26 to 29, 36 to 39, 46 to 49 and greater than 55 never appear in the NCAA. According to the New York Times, the NCAA has adhered to this number selection principle since the 1960s.

This partly explains that the number of shirts 69 has never appeared in NBA history. Professional basketball players usually keep the number of shirts they chose when they were young. There are very few cases of changing the shirt number. Having to adhere to the shirt selection rules from the NCAA level seems to impact the NBA.

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are very few NBA players who choose a number of shirts with a number between 6 and 9. Although the NBA is not too strict and players are chosen from 0 to 99.

The explanation

Another explanation is that the number of shirts involved in the referee’s hand operation when blaming the player. NBA rules in particular and basketball in general require that the referees must use both hands to announce the offender’s shirt number. The use of players with a tail number of 6, 7, 8 and 9 in the dozens will make it difficult for the referee team to report an error.

This explanation is less convincing when many NBA players are using the number of shirts including 6, 7, 8 and 9 in dozens. Even 2 players Jae Crowder and Tacko Fall used the number 99.

From the above explanations, the number of why the number 69 does not appear in the NBA is still a big mystery. Although the number 69 has never appeared on NBA courts, it has always attracted fans’ curiosity and curiosity.