Mind of McKrell: Time To Adopt The Elam Ending In All Of Basketball
Posted
Aaron McKrell-amckrell@timesuniononline.com
I hear it all the time.
“I don’t like watching basketball because the last two minutes take an hour,” disgruntled sports fans say. “All the fouling is unnecessary.”
It’s part of a sport I love, so I deal with the fact that I could read “War & Peace” in the time it takes to finish a game.
There is a solution, though. It’s one that will probably be scoffed at, even by those same fans who don’t like the current endings of basketball games.
Why? Because people love to complain, but hate to change anything.
I don’t believe the saying “this is the way we’ve always done it” is a good reason to cling to tradition. By that logic, we’d still be reading by candlelight at night.
So, allow me to explain and outline the pros and cons of “The Elam Ending.”
First, a brief rundown. The Elam Ending, created by Mensa member and basketball superfan Nick Elam, is designed to make the ending of each game more watchable. It is currently used in The Basketball Tournament, an open-application, 72-team, single-elimination national tournament that is broadcasted each summer on ESPN.
The Elam Ending goes like this: After the four-minute mark is reached in the fourth quarter, the first dead ball stops the clock. A target score is set by adding seven to the leading team’s score, and the first team to reach the target score wins the game.
For example, if the Bulls were up 80-75 over the Pacers, and a dead ball happened with 3:56 left on the clock, the game clock would be shut off. Then, the Bulls and Pacers would play to 87 to determine the winner.
It may seem, at first glance, like a way to inject pickup basketball into organized hoops. Look further, though, and you’ll see how exciting and efficient the Elam Ending is.
Under this format, there would be no intentional, obligatory fouling to stop the clock, because there is no clock.
Those agonizingly long endings to close, or even not-so-close games? Gone, with only fiery competition remaining.
The other thing, and this is both a positive and a negative, is that every game would have a game-winning shot. This would be exciting, and could be a statistic for the numbers fanatics. It also would make game-winners much less special than they are now.
Another drawback to the Elam Ending is it somewhat devalues what a team did for most of the game. If a team built a large lead in the first three quarters, and the other team started to chip away at the lead in the fourth, the leading team would at least know their efforts throughout most of the game made up for a sluggish finish. Meanwhile, the trailing team wouldn’t be rewarded for such a late start.
On the other hand, if you can’t hold on to a large lead, do you really deserve to win? It’s exciting to see teams pull off fantastic second-half comebacks, and it’s disappointing for them to be too little, too late because of a game clock.
So far, the Elam Ending is a hit with fans of The Basketball Tournament. It was tested out in 2017, and because of its popularity is now part of every tournament game.
The Basketball Tournament founder and CEO Jon Mugar said on thetournament.com that Elam discovered deliberate fouling happens in 50 percent of games, but only is effective 1.5 percent of the time.
Essentially, 98.5 percent of the time fans deal with exhausting finishes for nothing.
Even during that 1.5 percent, free throws are the deciding factor of a game. Wouldn’t you rather see a basketball game decided between the lines, instead of at the stripe? You could even argue that the foul strategy detracts from the integrity of the game.
Is that really what we want? As basketball grows globally, isn’t it time to make the game as efficient, exciting, and ethical as possible?
I know it’s different. I know some people will think I’ve lost it. But the numbers and logic don’t lie.
I don’t think the NBA would ever do this, but how cool would it be to see at a Warsaw Tigers game?
The Elam Ending should be implemented at all levels of basketball, and at the very least in high school hoops.
