I have posted on here before about my two buddies who started “The Basketball Tournament” which is an amateur tournament that combines fantasy, social media, and real basketball — with the winning team this year getting $2,000,000 in cash.
I recently attended the quarterfinals over at Cal State LA and got to witness one of their innovations — “The Elam Ending.”
Ultimately, to get past all of end-of-game fouling that very rarely results in a comback win by the trailing team but almost always results in a neverending slog of an additional annoying 15+ minutes for fans, they have instituted this rule based on a MENSA middle school principal’s idea. The rule says that at the first game stoppage after the 4 minute mark of the 4th quarter, the clock is turned off, and an target score is set — first team to that score wins the game. The target score is whomever is leading + 7 points (so if it is 80-73, the first team to 87 wins the game)
Zach Lowe wrote about it for ESPN not too long ago — and it has attracted the attention of NBA executives who have been bandying about ideas to prevent the “Hack-A-Shaq” type of stuff.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19078511/zach-lowe-basketball-tournament-innovative-end-game-rule
I will say — having seen it live for 3 games at the tournament — it was MUCH less gimmicky than I thought it would be, and actually did enhance the endings of the games. The announcer makes the announcement at the stoppage — and the crowd got into countdowns and when the winning bucket was scored, the place erupted — both players and fans.
We didn’t get to see any close games where strategy needed to get involved (i.e. if a team had 1 free throw, needed 2 points to win, should they miss the free throw purposely, etc.?) — but it was cool. It is so extreme, I find it doubtful it ever makes its way to the NBA, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it experimented with in the G-League or Summer Leagues or what have you in the not too distant future.
I recently attended the quarterfinals over at Cal State LA and got to witness one of their innovations — “The Elam Ending.”
Ultimately, to get past all of end-of-game fouling that very rarely results in a comback win by the trailing team but almost always results in a neverending slog of an additional annoying 15+ minutes for fans, they have instituted this rule based on a MENSA middle school principal’s idea. The rule says that at the first game stoppage after the 4 minute mark of the 4th quarter, the clock is turned off, and an target score is set — first team to that score wins the game. The target score is whomever is leading + 7 points (so if it is 80-73, the first team to 87 wins the game)
Zach Lowe wrote about it for ESPN not too long ago — and it has attracted the attention of NBA executives who have been bandying about ideas to prevent the “Hack-A-Shaq” type of stuff.
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19078511/zach-lowe-basketball-tournament-innovative-end-game-rule
I will say — having seen it live for 3 games at the tournament — it was MUCH less gimmicky than I thought it would be, and actually did enhance the endings of the games. The announcer makes the announcement at the stoppage — and the crowd got into countdowns and when the winning bucket was scored, the place erupted — both players and fans.
We didn’t get to see any close games where strategy needed to get involved (i.e. if a team had 1 free throw, needed 2 points to win, should they miss the free throw purposely, etc.?) — but it was cool. It is so extreme, I find it doubtful it ever makes its way to the NBA, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it experimented with in the G-League or Summer Leagues or what have you in the not too distant future.