The exercise balls have been removed from the Sacramento Kings' weight room and stored in a dark storage space, with no word yet whether a sacrificial burning of the rubber menaces is yet to come.

Kings co-owner Joe Maloof ordered an e-mail sent to the NBA's other 29 teams, hoping to spread the word about unforeseen dangers that can arise when performing even basic workouts with an inflatable exercise ball commonly found in many gyms and homes.

But three days after veteran forward Francisco García broke his right shooting wrist in a fluke accident that will sideline him for at least four months, nothing the Kings do can change the unfortunate and rare reality of the situation.

"You wouldn't expect it in a million years," Joe Maloof said by phone Monday morning. "Everybody uses these balls. Every spa in the world, you always see these balls. I think this is a wake-up call. 'Cisco was our starting forward, he has a huge contract.

"It's devastating, for 'Cisco and for us. We'll get through it. But at the same time you don't expect it to happen."

They might not accept it, either.

With García in the first year of a five-year contract extension worth $29.6 million (with a fifth-year team option) and the likelihood that the Kings will have to pay an additional player to make up for García's absence, Maloof said the team is considering legal action against the maker of the ball. Sources close to the team identified it as an Italian-based company, Gymnic – although the model of the ball isn't known. Before the injury occurred, the 195-pound García was lying on his back doing dumbbell presses with 90-pound weights in each hand, according to Kings players.

"We're going to discuss our next steps within the organization, but I think the most important thing is that this doesn't happen to other teams or other professional sports franchises," Maloof said. "For that matter, high school, college, any of these teams that use these balls. I want to make sure they know what happened to us."

It appears the nature of García's injury is unprecedented in the NBA. The New York Knicks' Eddy Curry was sitting on an exercise ball that burst last October, but team media relations director Jonathan Supranowitz said that occurred only because Curry leaned the ball against a sharp point on a nearby elliptical machine.

García's accident brought up loose comparisons with the late-September injury to USC football player Stafon Johnson, who dropped a bench press weight bar on himself and required emergency surgery after his neck and larynx were crushed. Last November, University of Florida basketball player Hudson Fricke broke both of his wrists when his exercise ball popped during a workout.

In another incident, a Chicago man has filed a lawsuit against a fitness club, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Saturday, after the exercise ball he was using allegedly deflated, causing him to fall and injure himself. The suit claims Michael Ernst was using the exercise ball when it "collapsed, deflated and became unstable," causing him to fall.

Mitch Maxwell, manager of the Anytime Fitness center in Elk Grove, said the balls pop more than some might think, and he cautioned people who plan on combining weights with the workouts to purchase the burst-resistant type of ball.

"It's kind of a buyer-beware situation, where you need to know your product if you're going to utilize your product in that way," said Maxwell, who said he recalls hearing three similar stories within the last two years in his industry. "Everybody really needs to pay attention to whether it's a burst-resistant quality. If the ball does not say that it's burst resistant, then it's not designed to be used with free weights. If it's not burst resistant, you run a very large risk of hurting yourself. … It's not a common occurrence, but it can happen."

Kings point guard Beno Udrih said the exercise García was conducting is common around the league. He does the same routine with 55- or 60-pound dumbbells.

"I prefer it on the ball instead of on the bench," Udrih said. "In the two years since I've been here, and then back in San Antonio for (the previous) three years, I've been doing it on a ball, and it never popped."

Kings forward Sean May, who said he has been lifting weights on exercise balls since his high school days in Indiana, called it "a freak accident."

"I've never heard of that happening," he said. "(Kings strength coach) Daniel (Shaprio) told me (the balls are) supposed to hold 600 pounds. And I've got to think, 'Hey if I was I was 300 pounds, benching on there … .

"It'd be different if he was out there playing or he was on a moped and got in a crash or something, but to be in the weight room? Who would think you'd get hurt being in the weight room? It's just crazy."

Maloof said the team is gathering more information before deciding its next course of action.

"I know that nothing like this is ever supposed to happen with these balls," he said. "Some people say (the weight limit is) 600 pounds, some people say it's 400 pounds. I guess it depends on the type of ball that you use.

"I want to wait until we get the facts and start formulating what we want to do. The main concern I have is to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else."

Staff researcher Sheila Kern contributed to this report. Read the Kings blog at www.sacbee.com/kingsblog.