Stall Ball ...

[ilyazhito]

Originally Posted by BigCat

The NBA cares about fans...because it’s for profit...the NCAA does the same and is also for profit..( while claiming to be amateur league...) High school basketball isn’t for fans. Isn’t there to make your life as an official easier. If your team is better then win. The game has been this way for a long time. You want to add shot clock to favor certain teams, certain fans, certain officials who can’t concentrate...bad idea..

A shot clock does not favor certain teams, rather teams adapt (or fail to adapt) to the shot clock. The shot clock merely sets a minimum speed limit of sorts for playing the game. How would you cross an intersection controlled by a traffic light, not knowing how much time you had left? There are cues (the white man vs the red/orange hand in the US), but there is also a timer shown on the pedestrian crossing device to aid pedestrians. I would imagine the roads would be chaos without speed limits, because certain drivers would hold up others by being obscenely slow, and others would cause accidents by zooming around way faster than the others. Just like a speed limit sets a consistent expectation for the speed that cars travel (although cars often tend to travel faster than the written limit, without cameras), so does the shot clock set a consistent expectation of a minimum pace for basketball teams. If a team does not actively try to score (fails to attempt a shot in a set amount of time), they lose possession, and the other team gets to try to score. If there are other time limits in the game for other basic basketball actions (a 3-second limit of being in the lane, 5-second limits for the throw-in and possessing the ball while closely guarded, and 10 seconds from crossing from front to backcourt (8 in NBA and FIBA rules), as well as 10 seconds to shoot free throws), why shouldn't there be an overall time limit to possessions? That would be consistent with the rest of the basketball rules (time limits to perform specific actions common to the game).