It’s basketball but not as we know it

The famous one-liner “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” was attributed to Spock in the famous ‘Star Trek’ TV series. In actual fact, he never said it.

The quote came to mind when 3x3ballers read about the British Basketball All-stars Championship tournament at the O2 in September.  It involves the top eight BBL clubs from the 2016/17 season.

There is a twist though; starting with a FIVE point line! Then there’s the 12 minute running game clock, rolling substitutions, a 3 personal fouls limit and no free throws.

What is really intriguing are the things borrowed from other sports. Like a ‘sin-bin’ from rugby and a 2-minute power play, from ice hockey, where all points scored will be worth double. So does that mean it is possible to have one basket count for 10 points?

Oh, we nearly forgot the £100k prize fund.

The ‘sin bin’ rule really got 3x3ballers thinking. If a player fouls out then he has to go to the sin bin for 30 seconds. In that time the team can’t put another player on-court. 3x3ballers can think of all sorts of weird things that could happen with that rule in force. Maybe that’s the point.

Another question about the rules comes to mind: What stops a team who is up one point with a few seconds left not making a hard foul to prevent a shot going up and running out the clock? Nothing as far we can see. As long as a player doesn’t foul out then the team faces no penalty.

The teams will play in a five-hour long event that will be double elimination in its format. If a team wins two games then they go straight into the semi-finals. If they lose two then they are out. If a team wins one and loses one, then they will play a third match to see who goes through to the semi-finals.  And all of this in front of Sky Sports cameras.

Now if you have read down this far you might be shouting “fake news!”.  Well, that would mean both the O2 and a number of BBL club websites have been hacked and no-one has noticed. Possible we suppose but highly unlikely.

And who is behind this event? A certain Barry Hearn it would seem. Barry who? Barry Hearn, whose Matchroom company has massively raised the profile of snooker and darts bringing in TV and big sponsors. The guy has serious pedigree in the sports promotion business.

3x3ballers is a bit conflicted here. The whole thing sounds bizarre but, as you will be aware, we have been imploring the basketball community to embrace things such as 3×3 as an alternative to the traditional game. Different forms of the sport for different audiences. So it would be hypocritical for us to just dismiss this event.

In a quote from a press release for the event it says “It’s also about encouraging participation”. But this is a one-off event where the rules have been specifically adapted. Anybody inspired to take-up the game by what they see at the event, will be rightly confused when they find out a 5-point line or sin bin is not in the standard rules.

So if you have a spare five hours, there will be a unique basketball event or abomination, depending on your point of view, taking place in London this September. Will you be going?