One hero—and villain—of the professional basketball arenas this season is a small board with blinking lights, set close to the playing area at each end of the court, in plain view of the players, officials, spectators and TV cameras. When a team gets possession of the ball, the board flashes the number 24. Then the numbers dwindle downward, changing every second. This warns the team in possession that it must try for a basket before 24 seconds have elapsed. Otherwise, it loses the ball to the opposing team.
This new rule, adopted for the 1954-55 season, has made the pro game a better, faster, more exciting sport. In other years, "freezing" the ball in the late stages was the bane of the game. A team that found itself a few points ahead near the end would simply pass the ball around from player to player, without trying for a basket (which would mean losing possession if the shot failed and the opponents grabbed the rebound). The trailing team would then deliberately foul to get possession (risking a one-point foul shot for a a possible two-point basket). The leading team would then foul back, and the game would dissolve in a dreary welter.
Under the new rule, in some games this year a team that was behind in the last quarter has managed to pull out to win. All of the National Basketball Association coaches say that they like the 24-second rule, but some college coaches (freezing is still very much a part of the college game) are eying it with misgivings. Also, college crowds want victory, no matter by what means, or how boringly.
Other reasons why the pro game looks different this season:
¶ The powerful Minneapolis Lakers, who won six N.B.A. championships in seven years, are now just a good journeyman team (in second place in the N.B.A.'s western division). Reason: the retirement of 6 ft. 10 in. George Mikan, widely conceded to be the greatest basketball player in history. Big George is vice president and general manager of the Lakers and a part-time lawyer; at 30, he says he has played his last N.B.A. game.
¶ In first place in the western division, and given a good chance to win the east-west playoffs, are the red-hot Fort Wayne Pistons, who at week's end led both divisions with a .773 percentage and had won nine of their last ten games. The Pistons' owner, Fred Zollner, a millionaire piston manufacturer, has spent gobs of money for playing talent, including Captain Andy Phillip, a backcourt ace, and for his coach this year hired Charley Eckman, an N.B.A. referee with no previous coaching experience. On the bench. Novice Coach Eckman comports himself like a cross between a whirling dervish and a man with the seven-year itch. He says he wins games not by telling his proficient players what to do, but by putting them in and pulling them out at the right time.