FTA and FTA/40 has been sort of a pet stat of mine for years. I've said for a long time that nothing would benefit the Spurs and Tim Duncan more than having another big who could get to the line with some regularity. It would improve their record, but it would also extend Duncan's career.
Duncan's reduced FTA's have more to do with what happens to him before he gets the ball. When the other teams figured out that they couldn't defend Duncan any other way, they started focusing much more on "denying him the ball". You can translate that to mean "beat the living out of him off the ball". I kinow that there is always a lot of banging in the low blocks, but no player in the league takes the kind of abuse that Duncan does off the ball, or as far away from the basket. I guess it's a great strategy, as long as you can get by with it. If Duncan did the same thing on the defensive end, he would foul out in the first half of every game.
After the Joey Crawford incident, it just got worse. There was so much talk about the Spurs being the worst floppers/whiners in the league after that. And Stu Jackson specifically singled them out when describing the league's "direction" on how certain calls and no-calls should be handled. The biggest equalizer the league has seen in the last 5-6 years has been allowing teams to manhandle Duncan with impunity, as long as he isn't actually taking the ball to the hole.
That's why I've thought that Camby would be such a good fit next to Duncan. Not just his defense, or rebounding, but because he gets to the line. It's not just the extra 3 FTA's per game that would make the difference. If the Spurs had another big that the other teams had to respect enough to give up some fouls, it would force them to give Duncan a little more space. (Or let the other big go wild.) Hitting 3-pointers stretches a defense, but it doesn't force the opposing big to lay off Duncan. Since DRob retired, we haven't had a big that could get to the line, except by accident.