[Lowe]: New kind of crunch time has NBA luminaries excited

I was explaining this to my kid and wife the other day, and they were both like "wtf, that's stupid"

 

Cool for the players and it would effect hack-a-Shaq techniques but as a fan why would anyone want a shorter basketball game? I'm hoping for blowouts or quadruple overtime

 

Why not just give the fouled team the option of side out or free throws in a penalty situation? Like NFL teams accepting or declining some penalties

 

Eliminating buzzers and thus buzzer beaters seems like a bad move.

 

I mean, to win the game it has to be done with a "game winning shot" to hit the target score. So in effect, every game ends in a buzzer beater.....a final shot to win the game.

 

I like the Elam ending as a fad. Fine with it in TBT or even G League. But I don't want to see it in the NBA. A bit too radical for me.

 

So it'll be more like tennis, where you have to win a certain number of sets, instead of timed quarters? I imagine a San Antonio/Detroit finals game from back in the day would have taken 8 hours.

 

it would work if they allow unlimited hard fouls. make it more like hockey

 

I just explain it that it's how all pickup games are played/won, since they don't use game clocks, much less 24-second clocks.

First team to a score. And Elam (as with some playground rules) doesn't do "win by 2" stuff.

Difference is, pickup starts with an Even score. The Elam rule plays the majority of the game with a 24-second clock, but ends with playground-rules, with a spread established by the 24-sec clock part of the game.

 

Oh no, I explained the whole thing.

I think if I just said instead of a clock they're playing to 110 every game, they might have been like... ok.

I like the idea personally...

 

Harden be out here winning games with a FT though!!

 

what do you mean explaining the whole thing? It is simply playing to a number at the end, like playground, after most of the game using shot-clock rules.

If people understand that playground plays this way, it doesn't sound so weird.

Do you mean explaining the reasoning behind it, and they thought the reasoning was stupid?

 

I mean... that's oversimplifying it a fair amount.

It's not like playground ball is 10 minutes than to a target.

It's timed, until a certain point, then you add points to the winning team than whomever gets there first.

It's not like super complicated or anything... but it does beg some questions. Like why not just set a target score from the beginning? Of which there are answers, but multiple ones (impacts game length, might unfairly benefit or hurt teams that play at different paces, REALLY impacts statistics as it relates to historical comparison and all-time records), which makes it all a bit confusing to a non hardcore fan.

 

It would be more like a pick-up. First to 30 by 2's and 3's and win by 2.

 

I think this is a horrible idea. Games could get extremely sloppy.

 

That's another twist about the Elam Ending. It discourages fouling / intentional fouling because with a target score you are always getting closer to that mark. Versus "playing the clock" on 2 for 1s.

 

Why?

I've watched a few of these games, and the finish is inarguably better than the foul/timeout sequence we see in most NBA close games. It isn't just about hacking bad FT shooters. We've all seen how the last 30 seconds can routinely take 15 minutes when the foul game starts. It just sucks the life out of so many games. This way every game ends with a basket created by playing normal basketball.

It will never happen because it is far too radical a departure from what we've come to know, but it would create a better product.

 

I kinda like this idea. It also makes comebacks more probable, IMO. In the current NBA, with 4 minutes left on the clock it's difficult to get back into the game trailing by ~12 points. But with this Elam Ending, you'd simply have to score 19 before the opponent scores 7. You wouldn't have to worry about the clock, and could take your time on every offensive possession. And the opposing team would also be inclined to generate quality posessions, not just dribble out the clock. I think it would raise the quality of the product.

 

I like it. This is how pick up games are played. I've always wondered why organized games aren't played that way. It would eliminate a lot of ISO plays dribbling down the clock at the end for the sake of "clock management." Every possession would be equally important no matter how much you are leading or trailing.

Unlike sports like soccer, baseball, hockey, and football, which have highly variable scores, basketball's scores are fairly constant within a range. So with the Elam rule the length of the game would be fairly constant too.