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TrueHoop reader Luke has an idea that strikes me as one of those "D'oh, why didn't I think of that?" things.

Those are usually the kinds of ideas that have life.

There is various hand-wringing about how NBA game clocks are not perfect, especially when being asked to stop and start with real precision.

How bad are they? Did David Lee get that shot off in 0.1? Did Derek Fisher get his off in 0.4? 

Somehow I had myself thinking: "Well, the clock is only so precise. We never really get to know."

But we totally could know. We have the video? Now all you need is a good clock. Presumable this could be done on YouTube. Or, courtside, for the referee to review.

Luke explains:

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now: What if when the referees went to review if a last-second shot was released before the buzzer, or if the clock started on time, they were able to see a real-time clock synced to the replays?

All you would have to have is a clock independent of the game clock, that would only become a factor on last-second plays. It could start when the inbounder receives the ball, and stop, say, five seconds after the game clock has expired. Even better, this clock could be more precise than the game clock and measure time in hundredths of a second. Then, when referees went to the table to review a last second shot they wouldn't be guessing as to whether the game clock started at the right moment.

I would think that when you're talking about two or three tenths of a second, three or five or even nine hundredths of a second makes a big deal. I assume that an NBA scorekeeper doesn't have any way to tell whether 0.4 means 0.31 or 0.39 or anything in between, and they consequently wouldn't be able to tell if the clock started early and ran down from 0.39 to 0.31, or started late at 0.31. Track and field has computerized methods for keeping time. Why not basketball?

Let's use Derek Fisher's famous (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) 0.4 second buzzer beater as an example:

Our imaginary play clock starts when the Laker inbounder is handed the ball. Hypothetically, let's say that when Fisher catches the ball, our last second review clock shows 2.73 seconds.Then right after he releases the ball, it shows, say, 3.22 seconds. That would be definitive evidence that it took Fisher 0.49 to release the ball, when the game clock had at most 0.40 left (and possibly as little as what, 3.1?). No proof here, I'm just making an educated guess based on the principle that really fast catch-and-release shots probably take around 0.40 and Fisher had to catch, turn and shoot in one motion and that probably added a little time on the release.

But our imaginary play clock allows more possibilities. Eliminating lag time on the stopping of the game clock would, based on the replay, mean that the Lakers had closer to 0.7, when it appeared Duncan's shot went through the hoop. If you extend the elimination of lag time back to the Spurs inbounds pass with 5.4, that same average lag time of 0.3 would put the Lakers back in the 0.4 situation conceivably as the two instances of lag time basically count each other out.

So inevitably, one of the important questions is to when this imaginary play clock would come into effect. Last second? Last five seconds? My suggestion would be all plays that start while the shot clock is turned off.

Maybe the league is just waiting until technology allows a computer to do all the timing itself without any humans pushing buttons to start and stop the clock. Either way, it can't be that hard for some amateur YouTuber to sync an actual time replay to a computer clock and do all this himself. I would do it myself if I had any video editing equipment or skills. (By the way, if anyone has done a replay analysis of the Fisher shot I'd love to know if he actually did shoot it in time.)

Oh, and back to last night's Cavaliers vs. Pacers game: If you look at the replay, when T.J. Ford's shot went through the hoop there appeared to be 1.4 or 1.5 seconds on the game clock, but the clock didn't stop until 0.8. Seems pretty imprecise to me.