LeBron's been in foul trouble multiple times in the last few playoffs.
That being said he is 7th for all time FTA attempts in the playoffs at 1529,
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/fta_career_p.html
and that means he takes 9.4 a game for his career in the playoffs.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01.html#all_playoffs_totals
Only averages 2.3 Fouls a game in the playoffs. This also does not account for all the walks, goal tending pin it to backboard blocks they let him alone do. He gets away with murder on the court, and if you look at him cross it is a foul.
He gets fouled more than he fouls for sure, that's true of just about every elite player in any era. But everyone gets away with traveling in the NBA, and pinning it to the backboard is legal in the NBA, so I'm not sure what that's about.
Again, I think LeBron got a lot of bad calls last game, and stars generally do get the benefit of the doubt from refs, I just don't put stock in this conspiracy stuff, or the idea that it's next to impossible for a call to go against him.
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But isn't the conspiracy real if we can all see it happening during the game and there is stats to back it up?
Guys it is not a conspiracy there is plenty of data to back it up going back at least 5 years. Unfortunately the best analysis comparing him to other stars was done in 2010 as many of the more recent articles have just focused on his streaks of low fouls, or not fouling out without putting them in a historical content.
http://www.emptythebench.com/2010/01/26/lebron-james-fouls/
From 2010 (Note this also shows historical numbers from Jordan, Magic and Kobe and they all fouled at much higher rates than LBJ)
"For starters, we should know how often fouls are being called around the league so we can see if there really is a big difference with LeBron. Through January 22, James played 1702 minutes and committed 77 fouls, good for one foul every 22.1 minutes of court time.
Everyone else in the NBA logged 298,868 minutes and committed 26,473 fouls, good for one every 11.3 minutes. Comparatively, James is half as likely to be called for a foul than the other 300-odd players as a whole. Without even picking up a calculator, it looks like most NBAers who would play 38.7 minutes a game, like James does, would accrue about 3.5 fouls per (remember that his 1.8 is rounded up)."
From 2012
After he fouled out in 2012 it was noted it was just the 5th time he had fouled out in 893 games, and the second time in a playoff game (unfortunately this was not put in a historical context)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/playoffs/2013/05/29/lebron-james-fouls-out-miami-heat-vs-indiana-pacers-game-4-eastern-conference-finals/2368449/
When he went 300 minutes of court time with two fouls
http://deadspin.com/5970837/lebron-james-has-committed-two-fouls-in-his-last-299-minutes-of-court-time
For his entire career Tayshaun Prince has averaged 1 foul per 25.3 minutes, compared to LeBron's career rate of 1 foul per 21 minutes. Do you believe there's an even bigger conspiracy to protect Tayshaun Prince from foul calls? If not, why not, when the "evidence" is even stronger for him?
Context matters - LeBron's foul rate is low, but it hasn't even been the lowest at his position, let alone some incredible historical anomaly.
Tayshaun Prince doesn't routinely lower his shoulder into his defender and get away with it.
Odd, a minute ago you were arguing LeBron was getting away with fouls on defense. Kind of an abrupt shift there.
Also, Wilt Chamberlain never fouled out of a game at any level, and he was a center, a more foul-prone position, AND played about 6 mpg more than LeBron. He also averaged 1 foul every 23.1 minutes, again a lower rate than LeBron. Bigger ref conspiracy, or something else? If something else, same question as with Prince - the "evidence" is much more in his favor than LeBron's, so why the different explanation? Could it be that the idea of massive favoritism comes first, and the "evidence" is just tacked on afterward for show?
I am not saying Lebron is the only player to receive benefits. I haven't seen Wilt ever play an entire game and have no idea what the refs were like in those days. I would definitely be willing to believe that he got special treatment.
As for Prince, I am not sure if you are making a serious comparison there. Prince has never been a highly aggressive offensive player and I can't really recall even seeing him drive in the last ten years unless it was a fast break. That means he has zero chances to pick up offensive fouls. While prince does guard some small forwards, he can not, and does not try to guard power forwards and centers in the paint like Lebron routinely does.
Then since it seems like you didn't read the article if you are bringing up prince and suggesting there isn't an anomoly (note you could prince in where they put nash and the point would remain the same)
"That astronomically low number has to be taken with a grain of salt since there are actually a few players in the league who fall into this category, but it’s usually pretty obvious why. For example, Steve Nash is committing a career-low 1.2 fouls per, but he’s such a bad defender, everyone he’s guarding simply dribbles past him and then he’s out of the play. It’s not so obvious with LeBron, considering he’s regularly guarding extremely dynamic players who routinely go to the line, and he’s often banging with the big boys underneath, where a majority of fouls are called.
A more meaningful way to look at the rarity of his foul counts is by comparing him to players who play similar minutes. There are 12 non-centers (centers’ foul counts are always high) who are playing between 38 and 40 minutes per. I decided not to look at their fouls per, since I already know how James stacks up here, but to look at how often these players get into foul trouble compared to James. If a player is in foul trouble, it affects how aggressively he can play in crunch time and if a coach needs to make substitutions, two things that can alter the outcomes of games.
These 12 players (not a slouch in the bunch – Bryant, Gay, Durant, Roy, etc.) combine for 469 games, during which they got called for 4 fouls 53 times, 5 fouls 31 times, and 6 fouls (fouled out) only 4 times. James has logged 44 games, 3 with 4 fouls, and 0 with more. In fact, 4 fouls is the most he’s been called for over the past two seasons.
Using a chi-square test on this data gives us P-values of 0.047 and 0.060 for games with 4-plus and 5-plus fouls, respectively (the calculations for 6 fouls are meaningless since they’re so rare for the entire group). That means that LeBron had a 4.7% and 6% chance of having so few games in those types of foul trouble due simply to randomness. Therefore, something else is at work here (most mathematicians consider anything under 5% to be “significant”).
Checking last year’s data, it’s even worse. There were 10 players who logged between 37.5 and 38.5 minutes per (James, 37.7), and collectively they played 777 games, 109 with 4 fouls, 48 with 5 fouls, and 13 with 6 fouls. James had 9 games with 4 fouls during his 81-game season. This data yields P-values of 0.023 and 0.0089, so he had a 2.3% chance of having so few 4+ fouls games and a 0.89% (less than 1%) chance of having no 5+ fouls games.
Yes, there is definitely something “significant” happening here."
Topic: The ABC announcers and the Refs (Read 34215 times)