Sunday, the National Basketball Association celebrated their 69th NBA All Star Game as the league took over the Windy City for their festivities. The events went on as usual with the Celebrity and Rising Star Games on Friday, while All-Star Saturday Night included fan favorites such as the dunk contest, three-point contest, and the skills challenge. However, the NBA changed the scoring format for its marquee event. The rule changes were as follows according to a league press release:
- After the first and seconds and quarters scores go back to 0-0
- Whichever team scores more per quarter gets $100,000 per quarter to donate to charity
- After three quarters the total scores from each period add up
- The fourth quarter will be untimed. Instead, a target score will be set by adding 24 points (Bryant’s old uniform number) to the total of whichever team has the lead through three quarters (i.e, if the team in the lead has 100 points, the target score would be 124). The first team to reach that target would win the game.
This type of scoring set up what is called an “Elam Ending”. As made popular by Nick Elam creator of The Basketball Tournament. A yearly basketball tournament with the winning team getting a million-dollar check to split between teammates. In The Basketball Tournament, it is usually only 7 points added on, but it was decided that 24 points would be added to honor the legacy of 18x All-Star Kobe Bryant who himself, along with his daughter Gianna and 7 others were tragically taken in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles.
The National Basketball Association is always on the frontlines in terms of innovation, and the addition of the Elam Ending shows just that. Although I was originally skeptical on this formatting while watching the opening quarters, it all changed once the final quarter of play started. Once both Team Giannis and Team LeBron knew 157 points was all it took, was when the magic really happened.
All-Star Games are in existence simply to see the best of the best play one another. The sad reality was that in years past it was simply a leisure game, these unworldly talents came together and often played at 40% because there is no incentive to playing in the game. That all changed.
The fourth quarter of the 2020 NBA All-Star Game was not only one of the best ones in recent memory, but taking the Elam Ending from TBT, it also puts a ton of eyeballs on The Basketball Tournament as it gears up for its upcoming run this summer.
It was refreshing seeing all the league’s best play their hardest this past All-Star Weekend, but I think the person who was most happy to see that was the man who never took a play off regardless of setting and that is the man they were honoring, Kobe Bean Bryant.
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