NBA: Official FT/FGA watch

[Mal]

. This make me sad..

[Latarian Milton]

rockets shooting almost as many FTs as lakers ain't no surprise imho, the rockets are like the league's spokesperson to the whole asian-pacific market and their fan base might be even better than the lakers in number. lakers started to receive extra foodstamps no earlier than the all-star break while the rockets have been living on stern's subsidies the entire season and that's the main reason why they're where they're now. what's even more atrocious is that the rockets get about half of their points from 3's and they rarely attack the rim, yet still collect more FT chances than almost every other team which's hilarious tbh

[ambchang]

Not sure how Laker fans are somehow tying this to the Spurs, really no kind of relationship between the Spurs and this thread, but I guess when there is so much obsession and people being overly defensive, you see funny things where people try to tie things together and try to divert the topic at hand.

This thread is not meant to be an attack or anything, just a way to look at how the league behaves in general. Funny how there are really no talks about GSW or the Jazz, and only a little big about the Rockets. Almost all responses have been about defending the Lakers, I guess people do get up tight when issues hit home.

Anyways, warrants an update, I would welcome updates from others throughout this time as this is quite a laborious exercise.

Note that the figures above are all FTM/FGA, when I originally thought it was FTA/FGA. For the purposes of the study, I will have to redo the figures later, and rerank the teams:

Last night, the Rockets shot 18 FT on 86 attempts, that is 0.209 FT/FGA, much lower than their 0.305 for the season.
At the same time, the Suns 39 out of 82 FGA, that is an astounding 0.390 FT/FGA, which is way higher than their season average of 0.236, and even higher than the Rockets season opponents average of 0.197.

In the Warriors game, they were 20/82, or 0.244, vs 0.261 for the season. That said, the Bucks only shot 19 on 78, which is 0.244, vs. 0.248 for the season, with the Warriors opponents shooting 0.291. This pretty much balances things out.

In the Jazz game, the numbers are Jazz with 21/78 for the game (0.269) vs. 0.293 for the season. The Knicks were an astounding 30/75 (0.4) vs. season averages of 0.265, or Jazz opponents of 0.294.

GSW, Jazz and Rockets all lost.

[ambchang]

On second thought, I think that graphs tell a better story than words, as it seems that most basketball fans are not number crunchers anyways, so I have created a chart tracking the ulative FTA/FGA of each team. I have started with game 43, as that is when the LAL had a sudden surge in standings.



Team means what FTA/FGA a particular team is shooting, while Opp shows the FTA/FGA of a team's opponent. For example, Hou-Opp is the ulative average of the FTA/FGA of the opponents of Houston after a certain number of games.

Given that this is a ulative graph, and we are starting with games 43 for each team, it requires quite a large amount of change to really move the line in either direction.

In summary, the LAL are pretty much staying on course, shooting about the same ratio of FTA/FGA, and yet, their opponents FTA/FGA seems to be plummeting like a rock. What is even more interesting is that the LAL, a team largely cited as too old and plays bad defense, is so low in opponent FTA/FGA, when usually a slower team reaches on defense and commits a high number of fouls, but hey, the league is impartial.

Going down the chart, HOU's FTA/FGA dropped large amount before rebounding significantly since game 59, but at the same time, their Opponents number have been shooting up quite dramatically.

Utah, the team most likely to fight with LAL for the last playoff spot, is actually holding steady in both team and opponent FTA/FGA.

Lastly, GSW is holding steady as a team, while there is a slight by steady increase for opponent numbers.

[Thread]

^Only pussies & assholes tote up FT inclinations.

[ambchang]

Too bad you can't understand numbers outside of simple <, > =.

You must be very happy, ignorance is bliss.

[Thread]

You must be very happy

Kobe: 5

the tired old bag Duncan: 4

supplies happy.

[ambchang]

Good for you.

[Thread]

Good for you.

lettin' Oklahoma take yer cookie that-a-way.

tee, hee.

[OKC]

OKC and FT stats really boil down to KD and RW. Now to be fair, both guys are good at flopping. Neither player really is doing any fine worthy flopping, but flopping in the sense that they know how to sell the call. Could it be annoying as an opposing fan to watch? Yeah, but you also gotta tip your hat a little bit to the art of what they're doing. Together they shoot, what, 16 FT's a game? Beyond these 2 games, with the exception of Martin, OKC is not a heavy FT shooting team by any means. There are games where KD and RW shoot 20 FT's between them and literally 18 of them are legit foul attempts. RW is unguardable. He's magnificent at getting the defender between a rock and a hard place. Defenders usually give RW a little space beyond the arc to protect off the dribble because hes not a great shooter. Backpedaling...will he drive on you or pull up? Many times the defender will bite on RW's motion to pull up, RW sees defefnder biting on a pull up so he drives, defender can't recover and is totally baited into the foul. Yes, at times the foul is probably not a legit foul, but these are fouls that refs will call more times than not because the defender was clearly in recovery mode. KD, same thing, but different. Defenders don't give KD space like they do RW. They smother him and he often times catches defenders in positions where he pulls the mini rip move and at least gets the call on the floor. At the same time, KD's long and scrawny build lends itself to the appearance of him being fouled when in fact he is not. He gets phantom calls. I'm one that believes KD probably gets a FEW to many calls. I like a game not called too tight. I like to see them play a little more. I do think though that one has to tip their hat to how these two guys get to the line. There's some middle ground here guys. The two guys are legitimately fouled a lot..a lot more than you think. At the same time both guys get their phantom calls in the ways I mentioned.

[ambchang]

lettin' Oklahoma take yer cookie that-a-way.

tee, hee.

Just like how the Lakers let Dwight take theirs.

[Thread]

Just like how the Lakers let Dwight take theirs.

We bled out Bynum. Ain't over yet with Howard. It can still turn out peaches.

& you know it.

[Captivus]

I would do the same calculation (FTA/FGA), but I would substract the center position stats. D12, Asik, TD...etc.
And then make the comparison.
It is also clear that players like Harden, Westbrook, Kobe attack the basket more than others, so its normal that they have more FTA.
At the end, we are trying to support what we see with stats, and that is: The league helps some teams. Maybe stats cant show it, but me eyes dont lie.

[Seventyniner]

rockets shooting almost as many FTs as lakers ain't no surprise imho, the rockets are like the league's spokesperson to the whole asian-pacific market and their fan base might be even better than the lakers in number. lakers started to receive extra foodstamps no earlier than the all-star break while the rockets have been living on stern's subsidies the entire season and that's the main reason why they're where they're now. what's even more atrocious is that the rockets get about half of their points from 3's and they rarely attack the rim, yet still collect more FT chances than almost every other team which's hilarious tbh

This is the type of fallacious reasoning I see quite often. The three best ways to score are layups/dunks, free throws, and threes. The Rockets shooting a ton of threes doesn't mean they can't get a lot of free throws also. Instead, they shoot a lot of threes and a lot of free throws by not shooting much from midrange.

Per Hoopdata, the percentage of shots that the Rockets take from different distances breaks down as:
39.0% at the rim (3rd in the league, average is 32.1%)
9.9% 3-9 feet (23rd in the league, average is 11.4%)
3.8% 10-15 feet (30th in the league, average is 7.9%)
13.1% 16-23 feet (30th in the league, average is 13.1%)
35.7% three pointers (2nd in the league, average is 25.0%)

Needless to say, you get most of your free throws on shots at the rim. The Thunder, however, lead the league in FT/FGA by a wide margin but only take 32.4% of their shots at the rim (13th in the league). It would be more interesting if Hoopdata included shooting fouls (where someone is actually fouled in the act of shooting, not just when their team is in the penalty); I'd imagine many of OC's free throws come on missed shots at the rim when they were fouled, therefore those wouldn't show up as FGA.

[OKC]

This is the type of fallacious reasoning I see quite often. The three best ways to score are layups/dunks, free throws, and threes. The Rockets shooting a ton of threes doesn't mean they can't get a lot of free throws also. Instead, they shoot a lot of threes and a lot of free throws by not shooting much from midrange.

Per Hoopdata, the percentage of shots that the Rockets take from different distances breaks down as:
39.0% at the rim (3rd in the league, average is 32.1%)
9.9% 3-9 feet (23rd in the league, average is 11.4%)
3.8% 10-15 feet (30th in the league, average is 7.9%)
13.1% 16-23 feet (30th in the league, average is 13.1%)
35.7% three pointers (2nd in the league, average is 25.0%)

Needless to say, you get most of your free throws on shots at the rim. The Thunder, however, lead the league in FT/FGA by a wide margin but only take 32.4% of their shots at the rim (13th in the league). It would be more interesting if Hoopdata included shooting fouls (where someone is actually fouled in the act of shooting, not just when their team is in the penalty); I'd imagine many of OC's free throws come on missed shots at the rim when they were fouled, therefore those wouldn't show up as FGA.

Good points. While I recognize some superstar calls going In KDs favor, these stats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Unless its an and-1 a foul on a missed shot attempt does not count as FGA. Obviously, players who are ultra aggressive are going to skew these stats as more aggression and FT attempts equates to fewer shot attempts. People will compare RW to a Parker and FT stats. People will contend that Parker attempts as many at rim attempts as RW but one also has to consider the nature o such attempts. Every seen RW attempt a tear drop? Me either. Parker- all the time.

[ambchang]

Another day, another update.
Of the four teams, GSW and UTA played last night, let's see how this turns out.

In the UTA-DET game, the Jazz shot 15/81, which translates to 0.185FTA/FGA, that compares to their season average of 0.292. However, the Pistons shot 18/80, or 0.225, compared to 0.284 for the season. While both teams had lower FTA/FGA than their respective season averages, the Jazz had a much bigger drop.

Luckily for the Jazz, the Pistons really are that bad, and the Jazz still won the game.

In the GSW-NYK game, the Warriors shot 24/78 (0.308) vs. season average of 0.262. All seemed fine and good, until you look at the Knicks number, 28 of 73, or an astounding 0.384, when their season average was only 0.266.

Hate to say this, but we really are seeing a trend where GSW, UTA and HOU are all either suddenly shooting less FTs, or their opponents are suddenly shooting more in almost every game.

Let's see how this pans out for the remaining 18 or so games.

[ambchang]

Another day, another update.

The LAL-ORL was pretty much a meaningless game, as the Magic was obviously trying to embarrass Howard, and winning the game was secondary. Regardless, it's a game, and in the grand scheme of things, this is one out of 82 games, so the averages will not be skewed greatly.

LAL shot 47 FTs on 73 FGs, that is a 0.64 FTA/FGA, that compared to their 0.34 of the season. However, as stated above, this is does not really reflect that much, the interesting thing is looking at the Magic numbers.

They shot 17/93, which is a paltry 0.18 FTA/FGA, this compared to the 0.23 FTA/FGA of the Orlando Magic, and also Laker opponent average. That translates to about 4 less FTA per game that, in the grand scheme of things, is not likely to sway the final results.

[ambchang]

Here we go folks, today is the first day where the numbers are NOT what I expected (ie. Lakers getting an unusually high number of FTAs/LA opponents getting an unusually low number of FTA, while HOU, GSW and UTA gets the opposition). In fact, all the numbers are reversed of what I expected!

LAL - ATL
LA shot 16 vs. 92, or 0.174 FTA/FGA vs 0.338 for the season, while ATL was 21/79 (0.266 for the game) vs. 0.237 for the season and 0.259 for LA opponents. Not surprisingly, ATL won the game. Keep in mind though, the last 6 FTA for ATL were intention fouls by the Lakers. Take those 6 off, and we have 0.190 for ATL.

PHO-HOU
Hou shot 30/76 for 0.395, vs. season average of 0.306, while PHO shot 10/81 for 0.123 vs. season average of 0.235 and HOU opponents of 0.254. That said, the Suns weren't going to win anyways, and the entire 2nd half was pretty much garbage time. League doing its thing to make the numbers balance out.

UTA-OKC
This is like a double whammy for Utah, or so I expected. I mean, fighting with LAL for the last playoff spot AND going up against OKC? I thought the Jazz will shoot like 12 FTA vs. 46 for OKC, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Utah shot 33/80 for 0.4125 vs season average of 0.294, while OKC was 33 for 69 for 0.478, as opposed to season average of 0.342 or Utah opponents of 0.296. Both teams shot more FTs than usual, just that, OKC still shot more.

GSW-DET
GSW had 25/72 for 0.347 vs season average of 0.240, while DET was 14/89 for 0.158 vs. 0.282 season average, or 0.276.

[OKC]

UTA-OKC
This is like a double whammy for Utah, or so I expected. I mean, fighting with LAL for the last playoff spot AND going up against OKC? I thought the Jazz will shoot like 12 FTA vs. 46 for OKC, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Utah shot 33/80 for 0.4125 vs season average of 0.294, while OKC was 33 for 69 for 0.478, as opposed to season average of 0.342 or Utah opponents of 0.296. Both teams shot more FTs than usual, just that, OKC still shot more.

Dellusional, victim mentality spursfans. Yeah, you woulda thought it'd be 12 to 46 in FTs because the refs surely got together and decided UTAH needed to lose to promote the Lakers playoffs hopes, right? And in doing so, proceeded to gift OKC an astonishing 12 first half free throw attempts...I think KD and RW shot like 6 of those. I have no idea how OKC built a 20 pt halftime lead without the help of the refs,given they are just an average team without all of those handouts.

[Clipper Nation]

I have no idea how OKC built a 20 pt halftime lead without the help of the refs,given they are just an average team without all of those handouts.

You were playing an atrocious road team in full-on meltdown mode, tbh....

[OKC]

You were playing an atrocious road team in full-on meltdown mode, tbh....

Yeah, but the whole thing is blown out of proportion by those with the typical victim mentality. I've posted a good number of examples of games this season against playoff caliber teams where OKC had a FT DISPARITY in the game or a tie in FT's, give or take 1 or 2, and won the game.