So folks, I have actually got the time to do a proper analysis of FTA for HOU, GSW, UTA and LAL throughout the entire season, and really, the results are funnier than Russell Peters and Chris Rock put together.
I thought I will put in all this work, and have to report something that would smash all conspiracies, but, the league is really trying to be transparent in moving towards a WWE format.
Let’s first look at the raw numbers, the following summarizes the FTA difference between a team and its opponents for the entire season:
HOU : +3.9
GSW: -2.6
UTA: -0.9
LAL: +8.5
The numbers are not THAT surprising for the teams.
We all know GSW doesn’t have the playing style to get lots of FTAs;
HOU plays with a helter skelter style that nets them quite a few FTs, on top, they don’t play a lot of defense so its opposition doesn’t really get that many FTAs;
UTA was a little bit of a surprise, as they are mostly inside dominated, but on the other hand, they foul a lot; and
LAL has Dwight, who gets hacked a lot, and they are LAL, so they naturally gets more FTA.
These numbers, in and of itself, doesn’t really say too much. The disparity could be due to different playing styles, different players, and such. The opposition remains pretty much the same, as they are all WC teams.
What is interesting though, and how the FTA evolves for each team over the season.
January 25th, 2013 is a turning point for the LAL. They went from a W/L of -7 games all the way to +1 on March 8, 2013. That’s making up a 8 game deficit in 20 games, which is phenomenal for an also ran team at the first half of the season. Not to mention, it pushed them to 9th seed, and within a game of UTA for the 8th seed.
LAL has always been shooting more FTAs than the opposition, in fact, they were averaging +7.0 FTAs from the beginning of the season to Jan 25, but something changed. During that 17 critical games, LAL outshot their opponents +8.2 FTA a game, on average. But unfortunately, that is STILL not enough for the LAL to get the 8th seed, what happened since then is truly amazing, enough to make OKC fans blush. The LAL outshot their opponents by TWELVE FTAs a game since March 8 until the end of the season, that is 19 straight games where they out did themselves in FTA difference by 4 FTA a game!
Well, what about the other teams? Let’s look at HOU. Up till Jan 25th, the Rockets were outshooting their opponents by 5 FTA a game. Then something changed. That something is called them being in the way of LAL making the playoffs, so over the next 16 games, HOU mysteriously shot 0.5 FTA LESS than their opponents. But afterwards, once the Rockets made the 7th seed, they went back to outshooting their opponents by 6.5 FTA a game for 20 straight games. The final two games of the season, once LAL clinched the 8th seed the OKC got the 1st seed, the HOU shot -5 FTA a game for two games (breaking even in one game, and being outshot by, who else, LAL by 10 FTA in the other) to drop to 8th seed.
GSW didn’t get affected much, as it was steadily a few seedings above the 8th seed throughout the season, but that doesn’t stop them from shooting 34 less FTS vs. LAL in game #79 of the season. Just consider them collateral damage.
Finally, the most interesting team, UTA, the team that was battling LAL for the 8th seed for most part of the 2nd half of the season. All the way up till Jan 25, 2013, UTA was actually outshooting their opponents by an average of 0.4 FTA a game. They were enjoying the ride, because they were still the 7th seed, and for the next 17 games, all the way to March 4, the Jazz would STILL outshot their opponents by 1.5 PPG, even though they weren’t overly successful in that stretch, and dropped from 7th to 8th seed. Then the carnage begins. Over the next 4 games, the Jazz were outshot by their opponents by 8.5 FTA a game, losing 3 of 4 games and dropping them to 9th seed. But dropping them to 9th seed is not enough, they have to stay there. For the next 16 games (games #65 to #80), UTA was outshot by their opponents by 5.7 FTA a game to “secure” the 9th seed. Once they have no chance of making 8th seed, the Jazz, miraculously, shot 5 and 6 more FTAs a game against the opposition to close the season.
Coincidence? It’s for you to decide. We are not talking about 1 or 2 games, we are talking about almost 40 games for 4 different teams. If it’s a coincidence, the chance of this happening randomly is, I must say, quite slim.
Reply With Quote
. would be great if both utah and rockets were dropped with mavs & lakers in tbh
