Change Saved The NBA: The Shot Clock

On April twenty third, nineteen fifty four, the NBA adopts the twenty four second clock, which has now become a staple an all NBA game and has even made its way into the college, FOBA and high school basketball games and has transformed the sport. And here's the history behind the shot clock today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History, I mean Than Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Most of us have never seen an NBA game without a shot clock, but you probably see in the movie Hoosiers. At the very end of that movie, you see the Hickory basketball team hold on to the bowl for a long time so they could get the last shot of the game. And this is how the NBA was played before nineteen fifty four, including were of the lowest scoring NBA games of all time in the NBA Finals when the Fort Wayne Pistons were playing the Minneapolis Lakers, who were led by George Miken, the NBA's first superstar big man, and so for the Pistons to slow him down, they held onto the ball as long as they could and they only attempted thirteen total shots in that game. Despite winning with the score of nineteen to eighteen and only scored three points in the fourth quarter. This game was a big black eye for the NBA as it was born. Nothing happened, there wasn't anything to cheer for. It wasn't how the game was meant to be played. Although it was part of the rules, the NBA wasn't sure exactly how to change this till nineteen fifty four when the Syracuse Nationals, the owner Danny Bassoon and Jeremaana jack Leo Ferris, experimented with a twenty four second clock during the scrimmage, and they saw during the scrimmage it really increased scoring as you had a clock that you were trying to beat every time. The reason they got to twenty four was the owner Danny, looked at games he really enjoyed playing where they scored lots of points, and the average team took about sixty shots that game, meaning roughly one hundred and twenty shots her game, and he took them out of seconds there was in forty eight and divided that by one hundred and twenty. For you met head, it was two thousand, eight hundred and eighty seconds, which equals forty eight minutes divided by one hundred and twenty shots, which gives us the magical number of twenty four seconds, and Danny Basin took this to the NBA League meeting in nineteen fifty four, where they all approved it. Now, at the beginning, everyone was nervous about this twenty four second clock. They thought it would be impossible to run an offense in twenty four seconds. But what many found out was twenty four seconds is a lot longer than you think. Don't believe me. Just try to sit in silence for twenty four seconds. You'd be surprised. We won't do that today. That would be a long time for nothing to be said. And what they actually found out was that first season players were actually shooting faster than twenty four This allowed for a lot more points to be scored. The year before the shot clock, teams averaged seventy nine points a game. In the first year of the shot clock era, teams jumped up to ninety three points a game, and by the fourth year of the shot clock era in nineteen fifty eight, teams were averaging one hundred and seven points, almost a forty point jump from before they had the shot clock. But this wasn't the only big increase. The thing that the NBA loved the most was this increase attendance by forty percent, which really allowed the NBA to grow more than it ever had before, with the league president at the time, Maurice Planelov, called the addition of the shot clock the most important event in the NBA and it saved the league. The amazing how one little change that didn't really change how things were played on the court, except for that you had to shoot faster, made such a difference in the NBA. Now, the original shot clock was a two sided box with numbers being shown onto the court and behind the goal, but in nineteen ninety five they were able to introduce a four sided cube in a three sided triangle into arenas, giving even more people the view of the shot clock, making it more exciting on every play. But by in twenty ten there was an invention of a transparent shot clock, which they can be adopted in two thousand fourteen as now there is a two sided transparent shot clock. Now, the shot clock wasn't only for the NBA call it eventually eventually introduced to shot clock in nineteen eighty five, but at the time, it was a forty five second chot cluck, which they eventually reduced down to thirty five in nineteen ninety three, and in twenty fifteen they reduced it all the way down to thirty seconds, which remains today, and high school has followed suit, although it's not mandated in every high school as it can be a challenge to get the equipment to run, especially for some smaller high schools that have smaller populations. But there are many states that actually do require shot clock at least at certain levels of their competition, and many other sports are actually adopted a shot clock in their league as well, such as lacrosse, Australia rules football, water polo, bowling, tennis, poker, and most recently, Major League Baseball has instituted a pitching clock. The shot clock is said to have helped save the NBA. Maybe you just do the same Major League Baseball with their pitching clock. We will have to see, but it's amazing how one little rule change can change the trajectory of the league. So we need to always remember that even the smallest thing we can do to better what we love can have huge implications. When the shot clock was first introduced, many didn't like it, and yet it changed the league forever and has now become a staple. But without this bold change the league we have never reached the heights that it is today. So the smallest change you can make and have a big impact on everything you do. And if you want to have a big impact for us at Daily Sports History, please leave us a review or rating wherever you're listening. You always love to see those. Come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.