Happy Anniversary 24-second clock

[OMMF]

50 years ago this season, the 24-second shot clock was introduced to the NBA. Thank you Danny Biasone.

Before the triangle offense, there was the four-corners offense, a gimmicky stall-ball ploy used late in games by teams that held the lead. They would position a player in each corner of the court and instruct their point guard to dribble endlessly until the clock ran down.

The opposing team's only real option was to foul to prolong the game, which turned an up-and-down affair into a set-shot shooting contest.

In the days before the shot clock, the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 in the lowest-scoring game in league history. The teams combined for four fourth-quarter points.

Remember those grainy archived images of Boston Celtics great Bob Cousy dribbling and dribbling and dribbling at the end of many of those Celtics victories?

All you really need to know about the style of play back then is that Cousy once scored 50 points in a 1953 playoff game against the Nationals. Thirty came from the free-throw line.

[Waffles]

I heard somewhere that there's actually a push to build a monument to the first 24-second shot clock here in Syracuse.

[OMMF]

I heard somewhere that there's actually a push to build a monument to the first 24-second shot clock here in Syracuse.

That would be interesting. I wonder how they would design that without looking lame.

[NJTank]

The NBA would have not survived without the shotclock, and Basketball would be just a fringe sport today.

[slapshot]

so, without the shot clock, the Heat and the Knicks might be scoring in the 50s. Oh, wait....

[NJTank]

No in the 20s