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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greenville, SC

    The Elam Ending - a Proposal

    I just listened to a segment of "It's Only a Game" on NPR concerning the foul fest that occurs at the end of many basketball games and a proposed fix. I know we've discussed this before, but this is a solution I haven't heard that it is going to be tried at a tournament this summer.

    The proposal is to turn the game clock off at 4 minutes to go in the game and from that point the teams play until one team reaches 7 points more than the leading team had at the 4 minute mark. I sort of like it because it means that a team has to score to win. What do you think?

    A link.
    Last edited by camion; 05-20-2017 at 08:03 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
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    Rent free in tarheels’ heads
    Quote Originally Posted by camion View Post
    I just listened to a segment of "It's Only a Game" on NPR concerning the foul fest that occurs at the end of many basketball games and a proposed fix. I know we've discussed this before, but this is a solution I haven't heard before and it is going to be tried at a tournament this summer.

    The proposal is to turn the game clock off at 4 minutes to go in the game and from that point the teams play until one team reaches 7 points more than the leading team had at the 4 minute mark. I sort of like it because it means that a team has to score to win. What do you think?

    A link.
    Seems odd. The notion of a timed contest is out the window. Wouldn't it be far simpler to award the fouls shots plus possession for this type of foul? Then there is no incentive to keep fouling intentionally.
    “Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Greenville, SC
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Rosenrosen View Post
    Seems odd. The notion of a timed contest is out the window. Wouldn't it be far simpler to award the fouls shots plus possession for this type of foul? Then there is no incentive to keep fouling intentionally.
    It is odd. The thing I like about it is that under the Elam Ending both teams would be trying to score rather than one team trying to stall and one trying to extend the clock.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Lynchburg, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by camion View Post
    I just listened to a segment of "It's Only a Game" on NPR concerning the foul fest that occurs at the end of many basketball games and a proposed fix. I know we've discussed this before, but this is a solution I haven't heard that it is going to be tried at a tournament this summer.

    The proposal is to turn the game clock off at 4 minutes to go in the game and from that point the teams play until one team reaches 7 points more than the leading team had at the 4 minute mark. I sort of like it because it means that a team has to score to win. What do you think?

    A link.
    So under this rule we would have never seen this?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T9_pPqWfI84

    No thank you.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by camion View Post
    I just listened to a segment of "It's Only a Game" on NPR concerning the foul fest that occurs at the end of many basketball games and a proposed fix. I know we've discussed this before, but this is a solution I haven't heard that it is going to be tried at a tournament this summer.

    The proposal is to turn the game clock off at 4 minutes to go in the game and from that point the teams play until one team reaches 7 points more than the leading team had at the 4 minute mark. I sort of like it because it means that a team has to score to win. What do you think?

    A link.
    Still chewing on it. Lessee... a team is ahead 75 to 70. Then at the first pay stoppage after the four-minute mark (three-minute in college) the game clock is turned off. (Is the play clock turned off, or does it continue?) The "game" then becomes to the first team to get to "82" -- 75 plus 7 -- with no game clock. OK, I see the attraction for games with a seven point to 12-point margin with four minutes to go, in that it gives the trailing team the chance to win by dominating the last few minutes and holding the leading team to fewer than seven points, while making up the margin.

    Hmmm... apparently Jon Mugar's "The Basketball Tournament" will try it this summer in its qualifying rounds. There is a lot of basketball played at every level -- such ideas would really benefit from test drives.

    One of Elam's main points, however, is that he has tracked lots and lots of games and foulfests, while prolonging the game, almost never work. Thus, we are agonized with fruitless delays of the play.

    What's wrong with just giving the ball back to the team that is fouled more than three or four times in last 3-4 minutes?
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  6. #6
    Why even play the first 36 minutes? Why not just say the first team to 70 wins?

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by bluedag View Post
    Why even play the first 36 minutes? Why not just say the first team to 70 wins?
    We could save time and make it the first to 21 wins.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    We could save time and make it the first to 21 wins.
    Who would ever want to play such a silly version of basketball?


  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Rent free in tarheels’ heads
    Quote Originally Posted by Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15 View Post
    Who would ever want to play such a silly version of basketball?

    Works well for pickup anyway.
    “Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Chapel Hill
    Why not give the team fouled in the last two minutes the choice of shooting or taking the ball out of bounds? ( If JJ were fouled, he'd shoot. If Tissaw were fouled, we'd take it out of bounds,)
    Love, Ima

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Richmond, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Ima Facultiwyfe View Post
    Why not give the team fouled in the last two minutes the choice of shooting or taking the ball out of bounds? ( If JJ were fouled, he'd shoot. If Tissaw were fouled, we'd take it out of bounds,)
    Love, Ima
    Adding on to this idea...in the last two minutes if a team is fouled they get to choose anyone on their roster to shoot the free throws even someone on the bench. The only exception is if the player has fouled out. So... the team who is leading will always have their 90+ % FT shooter on the line if the other team fouls.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    St Augustine, FL
    Quote Originally Posted by Ima Facultiwyfe View Post
    Why not give the team fouled in the last two minutes the choice of shooting or taking the ball out of bounds? ( If JJ were fouled, he'd shoot. If Tissaw were fouled, we'd take it out of bounds,)
    Love, Ima
    I like lma's idea better.

  13. #13
    So Duke is at home (of course) playing Piedmont Tech. With 4 minutes to go Duke is up 112 - 46. Would the game ever end?

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by lucybluebear View Post
    So Duke is at home (of course) playing Piedmont Tech. With 4 minutes to go Duke is up 112 - 46. Would the game ever end?
    Yes. When Duke gets to 119 points (i.e., 7 more points).

  15. #15
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    Feb 2007
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    Richmond, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by lucybluebear View Post
    So Duke is at home (of course) playing Piedmont Tech. With 4 minutes to go Duke is up 112 - 46. Would the game ever end?
    If duke was beating unc by the same score would we want the game to end

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    Elam's Main Point: 'Fouling' Almost Never Works

    Elam has three main points:
    1. Foul-fests in futile attempts to overcome a lead are awful experiences for the fans.
    2. Intentional fouling rarely results in a changed outcome. So, the pain is pointless.
    3. The Elam Ending would solve the problem -- by making the goal the number of points scored and get rid of the game clock (but not the shot clock).

    OK. Lots of people on this thread hate #3. I am skeptical but would like to see it tried somewhere.

    My main interest in this post (#10,003 on DBR, but who's counting?) is point #2. Here's the excerpt from the Zach Lowe ESPN story:

    Elam has tracked thousands of NBA, college, and international games over the last four years and found basketball's classic comeback tactic -- intentional fouling -- almost never results in successful comebacks. Elam found at least one deliberate crunch-time foul from trailing teams in 397 of 877 nationally televised NBA games from 2014 through the middle of this season, according to a PowerPoint presentation he has sent across the basketball world. The trailing team won zero of those games, according to Elam's data.

    That undersells the effectiveness of the strategy, of course. Elam's sample doesn't include most NBA games. There were a lot of instances in which fouling teams came from behind to tie games, but lost later.

    Still: The process was ugly, and it rarely upended outcomes. It didn't seem worth it to Elam. "Comebacks are just so startlingly rare," Elam said. "And the method teams used to get there was so artificial and unsightly." He would devise a better way.
    "...in 397 of 877 nationally televised NBA games from 2014 through the middle of this season ... [t]he trailing team won zero of those games, according to Elam's data.
    The "foul-fest strategy" worked ZERO times out of 397. Is that really true? Then, maybe we should shoot the losing coach who tries this strategy if it is painful to watch and doesn't change the outcome. I wonder if Elam's data are correct, and what the comparable data are for college hoops.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    My main interest in this post (#10,003 on DBR, but who's counting?) is point #2. Here's the excerpt from the Zach Lowe ESPN story:


    "...in 397 of 877 nationally televised NBA games from 2014 through the middle of this season ... [t]he trailing team won zero of those games, according to Elam's data.
    The "foul-fest strategy" worked ZERO times out of 397. Is that really true? Then, maybe we should shoot the losing coach who tries this strategy if it is painful to watch and doesn't change the outcome. I wonder if Elam's data are correct, and what the comparable data are for college hoops.
    I highly doubt it's true. Kansas-Memphis in 2008 and Duke-UNC in 2012 come to mind as examples of where the intentionally foul strategy worked. If I can think of 2 famous games off the top of my head, I'm sure there are tons (probably hundreds) of others in the same timespan.

  18. #18
    Thinking about it some more, I think you;d have to just have the whole game played that way for this to work.

    Because with this rule change people are just going to treat the last 2 minutes before the 36 minutes mark like they do now the last 2 minutes of the game. They will do whatever they can to gain an advantage for that first to 7+lead scenario.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    Mary's Place
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Elam has three main points:
    1. Foul-fests in futile attempts to overcome a lead are awful experiences for the fans.
    2. Intentional fouling rarely results in a changed outcome. So, the pain is pointless.
    3. The Elam Ending would solve the problem -- by making the goal the number of points scored and get rid of the game clock (but not the shot clock).

    OK. Lots of people on this thread hate #3. I am skeptical but would like to see it tried somewhere.
    This is a good split. I hate #3, and I challenge #1 in that several rules changes have been implemented to lessen the effectiveness of fouling as a strategy over the years. Therefore it is shorter and less frequent. This is a good thing; Problem Solved.

    For #2, we have some dubious stats of games with "at least one deliberate crunch-time foul". How many times are you allowed to foul before we use the dreaded term "foul fest"? There are "intentional" fouls throughout any given game. Perhaps a team is pressing late in the game, and a guy gets loose and goes one-on-one, and the defender fouls to prevent the layup - that seems like a basketball play to me, not a so-called "deliberate crunch-time foul". I will theorize that a team can foul 2-4 times at the end of a game without wrecking it. Maybe six fouls or more is too much. The stats need to be adjusted accordingly. Like other posters, I call BS on some cooked-up numbers. Perhaps the rate of fouls per minute is a better metric to measure.

    I will also posit that many games that we might agree are "foul fests" in the last two minutes were also unwatchable slam-dancing rock fights between teams with inept offenses during the first 38 minutes. (I'm looking at you, Coach John Chaney, no matter how much I miss you and love you. That goes for you too, Huggy Bear. Tom Izzo, Frank Martin - you guys are on the list too, but I won't miss you, and I won't ever love you neither).

    Therefore #3 is an attempt to fix a problem that doesn't exist or is at best overblown. Some have compared the #3 solution to pickup, where games are played to 11, 15, 21 or whatever the local rules are. I don't think these people have played very much, or haven't thought it all the way through. Case in point: there is a lunchtime pickup run in my neighborhood that I play sometimes if I have a day off, a doctor's appt, or I'm "working from home" (nudge nudge wink wink). Once in a while, on Fridays, holiday time, etc. there might be more than 20 guys in the gym. If you lose that first game, you know you're not getting back on the court no matter what happens. If you want to see a "foul fest", just wait until the game gets to "next basket wins" on those days. The phrase we often hear is "no autopsy, no foul."

    I stand by my original assessment:
    1. Make your free throws.
    2. Get out of my yard.
    "Quality is not an option!"

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Cambridge, MA
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Elam has three main points:
    1. Foul-fests in futile attempts to overcome a lead are awful experiences for the fans.
    2. Intentional fouling rarely results in a changed outcome. So, the pain is pointless.
    3. The Elam Ending would solve the problem -- by making the goal the number of points scored and get rid of the game clock (but not the shot clock).

    OK. Lots of people on this thread hate #3. I am skeptical but would like to see it tried somewhere.


    "...in 397 of 877 nationally televised NBA games from 2014 through the middle of this season ... [t]he trailing team won zero of those games, according to Elam's data.
    The "foul-fest strategy" worked ZERO times out of 397. Is that really true?
    I am also highly skeptical of data implying that fouling NEVER works. In fact, it took me about 5 minutes to Google "NBA game winner buzzer beaters" and find two NBA games from March 2017 (Phoenix-Boston and Oklahoma-Orlando) where a trailing team came back to win after their opponent missed a free throw in the last 30 seconds of the game.

    That being said, I suspect that most "foul-induced comebacks" occur when a team is only trailing by a couple points. Personally, I find it painful when the final minute of a nominally competitive game takes 10+ minutes of real time because a team repeatedly fouls in the hopes of increasing their chance of winning from 0.1% to 0.3%. The Elam Ending certainly removes the incentive to foul intentionally, so I am curios to see how it works out.

    Another option might be to have some form of automatic clock runoff for "excessive fouling". For example, you could run 15 or 20 seconds off the clock if a trailing team commits more than X defensive fouls in the final Y seconds of a game. Perhaps the clock runoff would only occur when the fouling team trails by a certain threshold (more than 3 points?). This would speed games along while allowing some (limited) fouling to enable a comeback (and you would avoid situations where there are 9 fouls in the final 1:01 of a game which never got closer than 5 points).

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