The general motion of a sphere in a mechanism in contact with a rigid planar surface under rolling, sliding and spinning friction is studied in the context of non-smooth contact dynamics. The equations of motion are solved by the non smooth generalized–α implicit time integration scheme, where the position and velocity level constraints are satisfied exactly without requiring to define any particular value for a penalty parameter. The geometrical properties of the spheres are described by a rigid-body formulation with translational and rotational degrees of freedom. The robustness and the performance of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by different examples, including both flexible and/or rigid elements.