The NBA played its first game with the 24-second shot clock 61 years ago today, but the man whom many credit with devising the formula for the current shot clock and helping found the NBA in 1949 has been long forgotten.
Chances are you have never heard of Leo Ferris. It's understandable. He walked away from the NBA in 1955 when he was just 38 years old to go into real estate and never returned to sports. That was 60 years ago, and time has a way of eroding or, in the case of Ferris, erasing memories.
Depending on which story you've read or heard about the shot clock or the NBA's history, there's a good chance Ferris' name wasn't included.