How the "Elam Ending" became an NBA All-Star Kobe Bryant tribute

The seed that spawned the way this year’s NBA All-Star Game will end — shaped as the most fitting of tributes to Kobe Bryant — was planted all the way in 2004.As Duke and Xavier battled it out in the Elite Eight of that year’s NCAA Tournament, a University of Dayton senior named Nick Elam sat watching the game with his college roommates.On the screen, a thriller of a contest was headed towards the same conclusion that so many basketball clashes at all levels end up at, a cycle of deliberate fouls, free throws, time outs and precious little action.“It was painful to watch,” Elam told me in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. pic.twitter.com/jbs3vDruMY— The Association on FOX (@TheAssociation) February 11, 2020That thought turned into thousands of hours of research as Elam went on to become a high school math teacher, then a school administrator, while trying to decipher a better alternative for basketball finishes in his spare time.The concept that he struck upon involves stopping the game clock at a certain point of the fourth quarter, at which point a target score is created. “I hope that when people see what type of basketball it produces, the excitement and the positive end to games, that we see it in college, the NBA, the Olympics, everything.”Help | Press | Advertise With Us | Jobs | FOX Cincy | RSS | Site Map