So by stating something incorrectly (or just making stuff up), you can prove/support anything?
Umm, okay you win that argument...
What part is made up?
I'd say the part that's made up is that all numbers from any sources have equal statistical validity; that "statistics" can be used to prove any point.
I think we can safely assume that the point you want to make is that Lebron does not get enough fouls called on him on defense (i've seen it in several threads today). So you throw out personal fouls per game. But that in a vacuum tells us almost nothing. In a vacuum, that stat is much like coaches looking at free throw totals and crying foul if there's a huge difference. I mean, there's no rule that two teams have to shoot the same number of free throws, sometimes one team fouls a lot more than the other.
So what's going on here is either a. Lebron is called differently than anyone else, or b. Lebron plays differently than anyone else. Those are the two options.
So on offense, you might suspect if A. were true, Lebron would have a lot of free throws: it's the most direct way a conspiracy of referees could give a player points. And, it seems it's true that he shoots a lot of free throws, both in absolute terms and per shot attempt. However, does that mean he is called differently or he plays differently? As the OP pointed out (and I chipped in), our very own Paul Pierce has a similar amount of free throws per shot attempt, just shoots a lot less. Then there's a guy like maggette, who has almost no marketing charisma, who is always among the league leaders in this category. Then you have a guy like Kobe, a marketer's dream, who is often near the top as well (and you'd assume a conspiracy amongst referees is there to help the marketing darlings, not just Lebron), but has steadily regressed in his free throw attempts per shot attempt. So which do we conclude: A. there's a conspiracy to gift points to the marquee players of the league, which includes Maggette, Pierce, Lebron, Melo, Wade, Durant, and Kobe, but with the conspiracy being told not to help out kobe as much, or B. That this stat reflects the style of play; that maggette very rarely shoots jump shots and is almost always looking to score by athletically driving into traffic and forcing the issue, and that this is how Melo, Pierce, and Lebron play too, and that this is how Kobe used to play but has gradually stopped attacking so much and relies more on shooting in recent years (less likely to draw a foul and a subjective observation shared by many NBA observers). Frankly, I think all it takes is to watch a few non-celtics games to conclude that B is much more plausible.
Really, the best thing to do would be to watch several games, and keep track of all the missed calls in every direction and see what percentage of good, bad, or debateable calls (and no-calls) a player gets. Someone like Lebron has the ball in his hands all the time and is always attacking. He's going to get some calls he doesn't deserve. But I saw at least 5 plays in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game where I was waiting (with fear) for a foul to be called on Boston's D, but wasn't...but probably should have been. Until you acknowledge how many NON-calls there are (both ways) and figure out who (if anyone) benefits most from bad calls and non-calls, I think it's much more likely that there's a lot of referee error that evens out by the end of a game. In other words, it's much more likely that Lebron is the most gifted athlete in the NBA than to assume that there's some corrupt system that wants him to be good that also wants Maggette to be better and is pushing kobe down.
But your point is about defense. Maybe the referee conspiracy knows that favoring Lebron's offense would be too noticeable, but that they can subtly favor Lebron by not calling fouls on him so he doesn't need to worry about foul trouble. But again, if there were such a conspiracy, would it be restricted to Lebron? If so, why? And don't you think if there was a double secret memo to never let Lebron foul out, there'd be some games where he was out of control and got to 5 fouls, but then mysteriously stayed there? Doesn't the fact he is consistently avoiding foul trouble mean something? Maybe the (painful) fact is that he just doesn't gamble 1-on-1 and pick up cheap fouls and is athletic (and big) enough to make a huge defensive impact without fouling.
But again, we'd have to watch game tapes. And we'd have to watch each individual player, and count how many fouls COULD be called against them, how many SHOULD be called against them, and how many ARE called against them. Then we'd have to see if Lebron's foul call ratio is out of wack.
I mean, I watch the C's. I see Perk get called for offensive screens, and fouls on rebound and rotations. They could almost call a foul on nearly EVERY play in which he is involved. But they don't. So say Perk commits 16 fouls (not unrealistic, really) in a game, but is only whistled for 4. that means refs are calling 25% of "flow of the play" fouls (they have to call the really obvious ones). Maybe Lebron is more athletic and smarter than Perk (a real leap, I know), and only commits 8 fouls per game, and is whistled for two. That's consistent.
In other words, for Lebron to foul out, if refs were making those calls for everyone on the floor, a lot of other people would foul out first and we'd be just as unhappy.
Topic: Fouls drawn per field goal attempts for selected players (Read 17010 times)