Throwing clock

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The shot clock display (red LEDs) in a basketball game

The shot clock ( English shot clock is) a time display, mainly from the basketball is known, but also in other sports (. Eg water polo , billiards ) is used. It shows the seconds remaining until the attack time expires (24 seconds in the NBA and the basketball league , 35 seconds in US college basketball ). There are also acoustic signals for the last 5 seconds. The throwing clock was introduced in the NBA in 1954 to increase the speed and thus the attractiveness of the game.

history

The Shot Clock Monument in Syracuse, New York

In the first years of the NBA in the early 1950s, many games were characterized by very cautious tactics; ideally you tried to take the lead and then hold the ball as long as possible, so that the games, especially in the last two quarters, were often slow and with little action. An example of this was the game between the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers on November 22, 1950, which ended at 19:18 and thus went down as the game with the fewest points in NBA history. Only 4 points were scored in the last quarter.

In order to prevent the long holding of the ball and the associated, less attractive style of play, Danny Biasone (former owner of the Syracuse Nationals ) developed the throwing clock to introduce the principle of limited attack time in basketball. The NBA took over the innovation on April 23, 1954, so that the clock was officially used for the first time at the start of the 1954/55 season, on October 30, 1954, in the Rochester Royals game against the Boston Celtics (result 98:95).

The attack time of 24 seconds is due to the fact that Biasone assumed a total of around 120 throws in a game played without delays. Spread over the playing time of 48 minutes (= 2,880 seconds) this corresponds to one throw every 24 seconds.

Outside the NBA, the FIBA introduced the 30-second rule in 1956; only in 2000 was the attack time reduced to 24 seconds.

Effects

In the 1954/55 NBA season , the first since the throwing clock was introduced, each team averaged 93 points per game - 11 points more than the previous season. In addition, for the first time a team (the Boston Celtics ) managed to achieve an average of more than 100 points per game. Three years later, half of all teams achieved this. Four years after the rule change, in the 1958/59 season, there was no longer a team that stayed under this mark.

The judgments on the shot clock were correspondingly positive. Former NBA player and then Boston Celtics star Bob Cousy praised the game's evolution, saying the introduction of limited attack time "saved the NBA." For the first NBA President Maurice Podoloff , the introduction of the throwing clock was even "the most important event in the NBA".

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "That was the way the game was played - get a lead and put the ball in the icebox." ( Bob Cousy , quoted from: 24-Second Clock Revived the Game on nba.com .) Retrieved April 10, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Stew Thornley: Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 Loss to Fort Wayne Pistons . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  3. ↑ Stew Thornley, Joel Rippel, Marc Hugunin, George Rekela: Minnesota Sports Myths . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b c d 24-Second Clock Revived the Game on nba.com . Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  5. ↑ Basketball rules - history on BasketBall-Portal.Net . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  6. ↑ 1954-55 NBA Season Summary on basketball-reference.com . Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  7. ↑ 1958-59 NBA Season Summary on basketball-reference.com . Retrieved April 23, 2014.