I found this pretty interesting:
Net free throws attempts since the start of last season, including the playoffs.
1. Lakers (+1,017)
2. Knicks (+358)
That is a massive difference between number 1 and 2.
https://twitter.com/AndrewDBailey/status/1772275077280858370
Feels a bit misleading for the twitter poster to make it a two year number. Intentionally so.
I was trying to figure out where those numbers came from because they looked like nothing I was seeing until I re-read the post. Two years. Not one year.
So LAL is a low foul defensive team and a high foul earner on offense. Most of the other low foul defensive teams are average to below average at drawing fouls. While most of the other high foul earners are average to below average (worse) at giving away fouls on defense. So LAL racks up a higher differential.
Then you add all the personnel changes like on teams such as PHX who have changed hugely over the two year period and you have further disparities based on roster changes.
Not as shocking a number as it first appears to be.
I agree with a lot of this, but isn't there an argument that what makes LA a "low foul defensive team" and a "high foul earner" is because of favorable whistles?
The lack of fouling in particular seems suspect for a mediocre defensive team without a lot of elite defenders.
Low defensive fouls / FTs concededI see low fouling as more of a defensive tactic than personnel driven. Popovich has always been big on avoiding fouls. They did so when they had high level defensive teams led by Tim Duncan and when they had bad defensive teams after Duncan.
The Spurs are 7th best this year in FTA/FGA. That is with Wemby. They were 8th best last year. They were 6th the year before. 6th the year before that. 12th the year before then. And 2nd best the year before that which was the last year they made the playoffs led by DeRozan and L Aldridge. None of those teams were good defensive squads yet they were often near the top of the league in this category. This is why I believe it is more defensive strategy than personnel driven.
Other coaches prefer for their defenses to be more physical and believe the trade off of higher FTAs is worth it to create more turnovers and force a lower defensive FG%. The old Pat Riley Knicks teams of the 1990s. Beat him up and live with the extra fouls.
So I put that down more to tactics than to personnel. So coaching driven rather than player driven.
High Fouls Drawn / FTAs earnedI see foul drawing as more personnel driven than coaching. If you have great foul hunters like James Harden and what not. That sort of thing. There is only so much a coach can do to alter this. This is player driven.
LAL have two guys who draw a lot of fouls in LeBron and A Davis. So I'd expect them to be above average. Same with somebody like Milwaukee who have Lillard and Giannis. Or Philly with Embiid who is a foul drawing monster like Shaq was.
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They should have a strong FTA differential given their defensive tactics and personnel.
So I would think you would have to compare LAL to teams with similar characteristics to get a good sense of how much of a friendly whistle they are or are not getting.
The difficulty there is that many of the teams that use similar defensive tactics do not have personnel that earn high FTAs. And many who do have guys who earn high FTAs do not use same defensive tactics.
So the comparisons are hard to figure.