Blake: Rating the best and worst arguments for and against a shot clock in NC high school basketball
One of my more chaotic memories of playing rec ball was the final minute of a game against a team from Lillington. The details are fuzzy, but from what I can best remember the Lillington team was up by 2 points and there were about 30 seconds left. It became apparent we were going to lose too many precious seconds hoping for the perfect steal, so my dad, our coach, called for us to foul.
Our point guard didn't foul. He played close defense and that was it.
I ran over to execute dad's plan, but their guard tossed it to the man I just left. Time ran out with him still playing his opponent straight up, refusing to foul.
"I said FOUL!" My dad couldn't fathom why this player had ignored everything with the game on the line. We needed an answer.
"We still had the shot clock!" responded the hard-head.
"Do you SEE a shot clock up there?" My dad motioned upward to a banged-up scoreboard that obviously did not have a shot clock — it had been on that wall for decades and its only update may have been some replaced light bulbs. The player, too proud to admit he was wrong, walked away and we all melded into an embarrassing handshake line.
Consider that as my introduction to the great, never-ending North Carolina high school shot clock debate.
The argument for having or not having a shot clock in North Carolina high school basketball can be aggravating. The arguments are sometimes circular. Other times, they're contradictory. They're getting old but they never seem to tire.
It might not be too much longer until the debate is settled.
The pro-clock crowd has to be encouraged by the N.C. High School Athletic Association having it discussed by the board of directors in every session since 2022. Detractors are struggling to come up with something more than "it's not necessary," which is typically sound wisdom for life but always tough to hold to that line.
From where I sit, I don't know if there's ever been a good representation of both sides. Sometimes, both sides talk past one another. They create caricatures of the other.
When I talk to anti-clock coaches, they're not old curmudgeons who hate change and are scared of updating their methods. They're actually some of the state's best and most accomplished coaches and are simply thinking about programs other than their own. They know they'd be better off with a shot clock, but they don't think it's urgent enough to foist upon every program in the state.
When I talk to pro-clock coaches, these are not shady self-promoters pushing for change for short-term gain. They have seen other states take the plunge and now they want the full basketball experience, just as we've become accustomed to seeing at the college and pro levels.
So below, I take a good-faith approach to what I think are the top three arguments from each side, rank their effectiveness at persuasion, and give their reasoning in the best light possible.
That's what readers and undecided folks deserve.
Because if there's one thing we can all agree on when it comes to the high school shot clock — this is not some rule you can adopt one year and reverse a few years later if it's unpopular. There is no coming back once it starts, and it's that permanence that requires a detailed look at the pros and cons.
Anti-Clock Argument #1: The extra cost is too much
The logic: The NCHSAA has halted immediate plans to start implementing shot clocks because it would cost high schools an estimated $3,000-$4,000. Not every school makes the same kind of gate money nor has the same booster club funds available at a moment's notice. The cost would need to be planned out well ahead of time. On top of that, the shot clock operator in other states is not a volunteer — it's a trained fourth official, which means the home team is going to pay another $100 per game for the extra ref, which adds up over the season. That's part of why the shot clock proposal is still a discussion item and hasn't been voted on despite a majority of the N.C. Basketball Coaches Association asking for it.
Our review: However, it's hard to wonder if something similar to what we saw in the pandemic, when fans couldn't come to games and a few companies (Pixellot!) came in and installed free cameras in hundreds of high schools across the state, won't happen again once the market is there. In Georgia, Daktronics has been that company, offering schools it already works with a deal that takes the cost of equipment below that $3,000 figure. And why do we assume the schools must pay for their own clocks when school systems often foot the bill for significant facility upgrades like gymnasium bleachers and press boxes? And as state after state adds it, the legitimate cost concerns will naturally fade into the background because — like it or not — the "if they made it work, why can't we?" counterargument is a good one. It's hard to explain what specific roadblock we face that other states haven't also dealt with on their journey to shot clock world.
Argument Rating: C
Pro-Clock Argument #1: It's better for player development
The logic: ESPN national recruiting director and former college coach Paul Biancardi has made the case repeatedly that players need to have a shot clock to enhance their development. It's one thing to play basketball the right way, but toss in a consistent time element and you're forced to be more cognizant with your decisions. International players have played with shot clocks for almost all of their development, and sometimes it shows with how advanced their decision-making is once they reach the pros. And while it's true that the vast majority of high school basketball players won't play in college, they too deserve the chance to be growing as players in whatever time they have.
Our review: As nice as it all sounds, however, this also falls flat. Even while other countries have made significant gains in the sport, it's hard to say that gap has been closed due to the shot clock. The argument also makes American basketball sound like it's American soccer and struggling to keep up with the world's array of talent. We're far from that reality. And if the shot clock were so beneficial to player development, why has most of this effort been focused on trying to implement it into the high school game and not, instead, every AAU tournament? After all, the percentage of college-or-pro-bound athletes is significantly higher in those events than your standard high school game. It's not that player development is a bad goal, it's that this argument lacks persuasiveness because it can't single out a critical need.
Argument Rating: D
Anti-Clock Argument #2: This will actually harm development for most
The logic: This argument approaches player development differently. It almost agrees with the pro-clock argument #1 — that the shot clock will be good for the elite players — but it raises a number of questions about the 90-plus percent of players who aren't heading for the college game. Have you ever seen a dysfunctional JV boys basketball game? Does any player out there need to be worrying about a shot clock? What about JV girls? What about some varsity girls games where everyone's essentially a beginner? Throw a shot clock on them and it'll be almost impossible to not run up the score on some programs who are already in dire straits. Is this what the girls game, which has been losing participation numbers faster than any other girls sport in the country, needs? Instead of making the game fun for all, it could make it more taxing on others. Not having a shot clock can help a team with a wider talent gap make a game of it, but a shot clock could essentially widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Our review: This is the first argument I'm giving higher than a C on, and here's why: it acknowledges a few truths about the game itself. Not every skill level is going to like this at first. Not every contest will be made better by it. It could very well have different effects on JV as opposed to varsity and girls as opposed to boys. But while it raises good questions, none of them paint a compelling enough picture that this is a deal-breaking point to be had.
Argument Rating: B-
Pro-Clock Argument #2: It brings in newer, more exciting, coaching strategies
The logic: Watch any NBA game at the end of a quarter and you'll see teams going for a two-for-one to try to maximize their possessions. Or watch a college team coming out of a timeout with only a few seconds left to get a shot off and see what they draw up. The high school game doesn't have parallels to these things, although coaches will try to score out of timeouts and maximize possessions in a clock-less world anyway. There are sets that you can run that make more sense with a shot clock than without, and players and coaches would take these things into consideration when trying to plan for their opponent. More options just adds to the experience.
Our review: The only part where this argument goes off the rails is when people start attacking coaches who aren't in favor as somehow being against adapting with the times. Coaches — heck, teachers too! — have to adapt from year to year, from week to week, from game to game. I don't know a single coach who has even hinted at being against the things listed above. Moreover, you can never assume you know which way a coach feels based on the way they play, a point evident in a Sports Illustrated article from 1982: "Coaches known for stall ball, like Dean Smith of North Carolina, voted for a shot clock. Coaches known for their running game, like Jerry Tarkanian of (UNLV), voted against it." So adding to the already existing chess match of the game makes this one a pretty good argument. It just lacks the urgency one might want to build a persuasive argument.
Argument Rating: B+
Anti-Clock Argument #3: It would harm the trademark flow of the game
The logic: High school basketball players all live by a simple ethic: see good shot, take good shot (As far as learning what a good shot is? Those batteries are not included). There's a purity in that, and it might go away with a shot clock. Why? Look what happened to the college game about a decade ago. There were teams that would pass up good shots because they were too early in the shot clock, and it wasn't just for end-of-half stuff, but for the entire game. Whether it was Wisconsin or Virginia, these teams slowed the pace of the game down, which is what the shot clock had promised to stop. Fast forward a few years, and five more seconds came off the NCAA shot clock, dropping from 35 to 30. What if high school teams started doing that in droves? The flow of the game gets interrupted by a devoted adherence to the clock. For all the arguments about one team playing "stall ball" on some random January night when there are hundreds of games statewide that don't feature any of it, there's one thing we have to agree on: we've never reached the end of the high school season and gone "Man I sure wish the pace of play was different." It's perfect the way it is, anti-clockers argue.
Our review: This is the best argument against the shot clock. Teams are adopting their own styles independent of a shot clock and it's led to entertaining basketball, so why change? The fact is, we may think we know what a simple rule change will do, but basketball has a way of surprising us. Take the 3-point line. It was to increase scoring and make comebacks easier. It did that! But it also, in less than 40 years, made the NBA a catch-and-shoot league and made the 7-footer playing back-to-the-basket hoops obsolete — and no one saw that coming. The addition of the double bonus was supposed to stem fouling at the end of games, but it did nothing of the sort. So it makes sense to question if there might be unintended consequences from introducing something like this into the high school game in one of (if not THE) best states for basketball.
Argument Rating: A
Pro-Clock Argument #3: It would give teams better ways to end the game
The logic: The 2017 4A championship featured six future D1 guards — Southwest Guilford had the three Langley brothers (Kobe, Keshaun, Kam) and Leesville Road had Alex Hunter, Jalen Benjamin, and D.J. Horne. Guard play matters and always has. But guard play with no shot clock? Oh it matters a little too much. Go up by six with 2 minutes left? Time to take the air out of the ball — if you have the players to pull it off and especially if they happen to be knock-down shooters from the free throw line. That makes a team start chasing the game way too early. You're telling me they can't wait another 50 seconds of game time to have to do that? Can't we put more pressure on the team that built a small lead to go and make it larger instead of all but handing them the victory for a good 29 minutes in a 32-minute game? It might come down to this, basically: high schools adopted the college rules on fouls and the double bonus, but didn't adopt a shot clock at the same time. That has tilted the late-game situations in favor of the team that's ahead. They can hold the ball forever and get two free throws every time, whereas back in the 1980s they at least had to make a series of 1-and-1s that kept everyone on the edge of their seat. Now? Yes, there are some fantastic finishes, but a lot of the time the game feels like it's a wrap when it's a single digit game with more than a minute left — and that just ain't right.
Our review: This is the best argument overall. No one I know likes that a team can take a slim lead and try to milk it with a fourth of the final period still to go. It's especially unpleasant and boring when a team does it each quarter. There are other ways to try to change this — FIBA once had something where, if you were fouled, you could choose to shoot a 1-and-1 or take the ball out of bounds; or you could always switch high school to college and go to two halves, thus cutting the opportunities to hold the ball in half; or we could go back to the days where every late-game free throw besides shooting fouls were 1-and-1s (it's not like the double bonus deterred people from late-game fouling). None of these other ways to stop the end-of-game problems has ever gotten much traction. It's shot clock or bust. But if there's one thing that leaves a bad taste with fans as they leave, it's how the end the game shakes out with no shot clock — that anger is fueling the current movement.
Argument Rating: A+
Final Scorecard
Let's look at how I've scored these argument's effectiveness.
Anti-Clock Arguments, ranked: Hurts game flow (A), Leave behind less-skilled players (B-), Extra cost (C)
Pro-Clock Arguments, ranked: End of game (A+), Coaching strategies (B+), Develops players (D)
If we're doing GPA, that gives the anti-clock folks a 2.90 and the pro-clock folks a 2.87.
That's neck-and-neck.
Persuasiveness doesn't often work as an average, however.
We usually (if we're being effective) drop the ones that aren't working and go with only our best foot forward.
This gives the pro-clock arguments a small edge over the anti-clock ones — they have two of the three most persuasive arguments here — and that's why I think, no matter what I think, that will be the side that wins the day eventually.
