Danny Biasone
From Hoopedia
Daniel "Danny" Biasone (February 22, 1909, Miglianico of Chieti, Italy - May 25, 1992) was the founding owner of the Syracuse Nationals, an NBA team now known as the Philadelphia 76ers. Biasone, who was a childhood immigrant to the United States from Italy, was mostly known for advocating the use of the shot clock in basketball.
Although he did not originate the idea of a shot clock, he strongly supported its adoption in professional basketball. Biasone successfully lobbied the NBA to institute the shot clock in 1954. He was responsible for establishing the NBA shot clock at twenty-four seconds, where it has remained to this day. He supported the twenty-four second rule on the basis of his observations, experience, and basic arithmetic. Biasone asserted that basketball proved most exciting when it achieved a balance between stalling contests and wild shootouts. He envisioned a well-paced match up in which each team took around sixty shots per game. Given that professional basketball games lasted forty-eight minutes, Biasone divided 2880 (the number of seconds in forty-eight minutes) by 120 (the total number of shots taken per game when each team attempted sixty shots) and arrived at a figure he considered optimal: one shot every 24 seconds.
Additionally, he was also a primary force in convincing the NBA to adopt the backcourt foul rule in 1953.
Daniel Biasone was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as contributor in 2000.
