Giving out the game ball is a long-standing tradition in sports. A player sets a milestone in a game or scores the winning point or points, and you give them a game ball — that’s how it has always been.

When Shaquille O’Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers reached the 20,000-point milestone in his career March 20 in Sacramento, he got a little more than he bargained for with his game ball.

Apparently, a Sacramento Kings fan grabbed the ball during a timeout and wrote an expletive on the ball. I can only dream of what I would have written on it, but that’s another story.

Shaq, who loves to fuel the rivalry between the Lakers and Kings, said he was hoping the Kings’ organization didn’t do it and doesn’t condone it. But of course we all know the Kings hate the Lakers, and whoever did write the expletive would get more handshakes than anything.

I suppose 20,000 points is worthy of a game ball. But if we’re going to be handing out game balls to Shaq, I can come up with some others in the sports world that deserve the proverbial game ball. And since I asked for a basketball for Christmas and I now own half of Spalding sports, I have plenty of balls to go around.

The first game ball I want to give out is to Larry Eustachy. The man faced an extraordinary amount of adversity this season that would break down any normal person emotionally.

But you add on the high-stress job and the media analyzing and sometimes criticizing your every breath and life gets even more difficult.

But he was able to keep a young team together and brought it into postseason play. His team made it to the second round in both the Big 12 tournament in Dallas and the National Invitational Tournament, and played respectable basketball in both second-round losses.

You the man Larry.

The next game ball I want to give out is for New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza. With his violent temper and ability to clear the benches in spring training brawls, he is giving people a reason to keep watching professional baseball — which is a dying sport.

How about throwing a game ball at the Butler Bulldogs, this year’s Cinderella story in the NCAA tournament? Though this 12 seed will most likely lose in the Sweet 16 tonight when they meet Oklahoma, it is impressive they have come this far with wins over Mississippi State and Louisville.

I have to give a game ball to Emmitt Smith for single-handedly pissing the rest of his career down his leg by signing with the struggling franchise known as the Arizona Cardinals.

Here is another game ball I can see myself writing expletives on.

I just love this stroke of genius. Take a team that needs marquee players to win football games, and bring in a washed-up, overrated running back.

Tiger Woods needs a game ball as well. He has come back from an injury to win three of the four tournaments he has played in this year, and he is winning with ease, something not common on the PGA tour until Woods came along.

My next game ball is going to a high school basketball coach in Texas named Earl Carson. He offered $1 to any player on his team who took a charge in a game — an idea that was actually working. He didn’t pay anybody until the season was over, and after hearing that this action was frowned upon, he got all the money back. But he still lost his job. I know we all should have learned from LeBron James and his “throwback” jerseys he wasn’t supposed to accept, but offering a kid a dollar for hard work is no reason to lose a job.

Hopefully a proverbial game ball from me will make him feel a little better.

I know war isn’t very sports-related, unless you think of the head-to-head aspect of it, but I’m going to give a special game ball to our soldiers.

Not only is there a war for them to worry about, but they still have to worry about stopping terrorism in our own country — a job that was supposedly pushed onto the police. But the police are too busy dealing with protesters. In the protest in Times Square over the weekend, there were reportedly more than 2,000 New York police there.

I’m sure our soldiers would appreciate it if their own people would stop bothering police so they can help our army protect us on our homeland.

Sure, most of these things aren’t comparable to garnering 20,000 points in a career. But they’re my game balls, and I’m giving them out anyway.