Ball State University professor Nick Elam is the man behind the revolutionary variant turning the sport of basketball on its head, but for him he’s just living out his dream.
“Dream is the word because this is a dream for me to see this concept continue to grow and ultimately I want to see it at the highest levels of play,” Elam said on Indiana Sports Beat. “I don’t think overnight it’s going to be implemented across the board at those highest levels but I think the format’s going to continue to grow at different levels in the meantime.”
Elam developed the idea as a college senior looking to make the end of basketball games more exciting, and the rest is history. The Basketball Tournament has adopted the Elam Ending since 2017 and the NBA tested it out for the fourth quarter of this season’s All-Star Game in Chicago.
Instead of a running clock for the home stretch of the game, a target score is set at some point in the fourth quarter based on the leading team’s score and the game is guaranteed to have a game-winning shot. TBT has a plus-eight target score at the first dead ball inside the final four minutes while the NBA All-Star Game’s plus-24 target score was set at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Like any variant, nothing about the Elam Ending is set in stone. This year, for example, TBT is adding a new rule during the Elam phase of its game to discourage reach-in and intentional fouls within the final few possessions. Instead of a pair of free throws, all calls on the floor at the end of the game result in one foul shot plus possession afterwards.
“If a team was trying to shoot a three-pointer to win the game and their opponent was just one or two points from that target score, sometimes you would see a team foul to prevent that game-winning three-pointer,” Elam said. “But with this new rule, there’s no reason to foul because they’re just going to get one shot and possession.”
Elam explained that this adjustment is to simply increase the chances of a “heart-stopping scenario” at the end of the game, and that he’s always looking for tweaks that make for more consistently thrilling endings.
“I’ve always said that I think that I’m really the toughest critic of the Elam Ending because I really try to look at it inside and out because I want it to be as good as it can possibly be.”
This year’s TBT will take place from July 4-14 in Columbus, Ohio, as the Elam Ending is used in all games for the third consecutive summer, but Elam hinted that another basketball tournament or organization will soon announce that it too will use the approach.
“I feel like every league or event should have the opportunity to announce that implementation on their own terms but what I will say is that here in the coming weeks, we’re going to get an exciting announcement about another league or event that is implementing the format,” Elam said.
For the complete interview and entire episode, check out the tweet below.
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