Mike Vlahovich: Shooting the breeze over a shot clock

The other night at a Greater Spokane League basketball game I ran into an acquaintance who posed a question: Isn’t it time for boys basketball to have a shot clock?

College men have one, he reasoned, and it would eliminate boring ball control that defined his 1950s era as a player.

Stan Rhodes is not alone. An Internet search revealed comment on this question posed in the Billings Gazette.

Montana high school teams played in North Dakota, which now has a 35-second clock and plays two 18-minute halves. Online feedback was substantial and thoughtful.

Comments ranged from proponents – such as one who said it would be appropriate for bigger schools where “basketball is boring to me because defense is so stressed it causes the game to slow down” – to the facetious opponent who said, “Of course there should be a shot clock. There should also be 4 arcs – a 1-point arc, 2-point arc, 3-point arc, and 4-point arc. If you make a shot from past halfcourt you should get 5 points and the other team has to do 20 pushups.”

Judging from the game’s evolution, not a lot of coaches today and certainly few players adhere to a deliberate style of basketball.

Mead coach Glenn Williams said he prefers to play “fast” and is a proponent of the shot clock idea.

“Generally speaking,” he said, “we think it’s more fun for kids and fans.”

His counterpart at Mt. Spokane, Bill Ayers, has kept games into the 40- and 30-point range with stricter time management.

He argues that a shot clock limits some teams’ ability to win.

“In my opinion it reduces the opportunity to use strategy and goes down to who has the best talent,” he said.

Rhodes played in the mid-1950s for the late Hall of Fame Central Valley coach Ray Thacker – whose patient tempo became legend – and wasn’t a fan of slowdown back then. But Thacker’s Bears won six state trophies in eight years during the 1960s, including a state title.

The late Ferris coaching legend Wayne Gilman (one state title, five seconds, 11 total trophies) played methodically as an antidote to up-tempo state foes, but also could fast break.

Personally, I’m ambivalent. If the shot clock forces everyone to play the same style of up-and-down game, a strategic ability to force a team out of its comfort zone could be lost.

And it only makes sense in the last minute or two of a game for a team to try and draw fouls as a means to protect its lead. Even up-tempo proponent Williams said when you have a lead late in a game you want to “make the clock go away.”

The cynic in me also believes that if a coach wants to stall, it should be his right to blow a game. How many teams build double-digit advantages with 3 or 4 minutes left only to squander them when they become too conservative?

I also see how a shot clock can make games more exciting. Control teams are just as likely to shoot within half a minute anyway. Time can still be managed, said Williams, and new strategy comes into play.

The clock does a disservice only when teams feel it justifies carte blanche pell-mell play. Acrobatic players today get up and down the floor in a hurry.

But some do so at the expense of the fundamentals and a rudimentary understanding of basketball. That doesn’t make it any better a game than in the boring old days.