Ringer: No, the Lakers’ Massive Free Throw Advantage Isn’t a Conspiracy

[levon]

For my gambler and conspiratorial friends on here, a robust analysis:

Beyond a pernicious plot, moreover, there is ample reason to believe this Lakers team should draw many more fouls than it commits. On offense, the Lakers rank 29th in 3-point attempt rate, per CtG, and are tied for second in the rate of shots they attempt at the rim. (The team with the highest at-rim frequency is Orlando, which leads the league in free throw rate.) In other words, L.A. takes a larger proportion of its shots in the area most likely to draw foul calls.

And on defense, the opposite is true: The Lakers allow the fourth-lowest frequency of shots at the rim and the fifth-highest frequency of 3-pointers, meaning they funnel opposing teams into the sorts of shots that don’t draw fouls. Teams with similar defensive shot charts include the Celtics, who rank second in lowest opponent free throw rate, and the Heat, who rank fourth.

Put another way, the Lakers have taken 435 more free throws than their opponents this season—but they’ve taken 513 fewer 3-pointers (ahead of only the Bulls’ minus-535 margin). Given that not even 1 percent of 3-point attempts produce foul calls, that’s a gigantic number of extra shots on which the Lakers can draw contact.

...

The free throw disparity kings of the 21st century are the 2017-18 Charlotte Hornets, who went 36-46 despite attempting a whopping 722 more free throws than their opponents. It’s hard to imagine that the league office concocted a conspiracy to help those Hornets, whose leading free throw takers were Kemba Walker, Dwight Howard, Jeremy Lamb, Frank Kaminsky, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Clearly, there’s more to a large free throw disparity than player reputation or the whims of referees.

On a percentage basis, those Hornets attempted 48 percent more free throws than their opponents. For comparison, the 2022-23 Lakers were at plus-28 percent (which ranks 15th this century), and the 2023-24 Lakers are at plus-34 percent (which ranks ninth this century) with 10 games to go.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2024/3/28/24114310/doc-rivers-milwaukee-bucks-lebron-james-los-angeles-lakers

[Iwasawitness]

Only one plausible explanation for this:

[KembaWalker]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

[Slink]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

I doubt a missed called that happened over a year ago is still causing sleepless nights

[levon]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

The disparity existed before the Celtics game as well as after, and I've repeatedly listed a myriad of factors that would far more plausibly correlate to an uptick.

Most of sports talk is just collectively writing fanfic and a telenovela for men though, so you do you. This is just for the audience that cares to reference analysis.

[Pelon chingon]

*2002

[KembaWalker]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

I doubt a missed called that happened over a year ago is still causing sleepless nights

That tweet was a whistleblow from the ref union in the safest way they could that the Lakers will get special treatment. There’s a reason they’ve never done anything like that before or since. Professional organizations don’t just say stuff like that for no reason their official channels

[Hornet Mania]

The Hornets section is missing some extremely important context: Hack-a-Dwight.

Charlotte wasn't getting a great whistle that season, one of their primary contributors was a liability from the line and opponents knew it. All those extra FTs were not an advantage, they were dragging the team down because Dwight couldn't hit them at a respectable rate.

Not saying the Laker free throw conspiracy is legit, but that is just poor journalism not to mention such an important detail.

Edit: For those interested, I looked it up and Dwight was 4th in the league with 582 FT attempts that season. Harden led the league with 727, Giannis had 641 and Anthony Davis edged out Dwight for 3rd with 598. Dwight averaged half the FG attempts of the other three, so he obviously experienced a lot of hacking not involving shot attempts in comparison to the other leaders.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-free-throw-attempts-2018

[VanWest82]

Beyond the obvious history of some very suspicious series involving Lakers, the problem with this kind of analysis is it paints over what actually happens on the court.

There are no shot charts that can explain some of the calls superduperstar Austin Reaves gets. On the flip side, the next time Lebron gets called for the forearm shove right as the guy he’s guarding is elevating will be his first. The way Lebron is officiated in general is maddening, both for and against.

Simply put, a team with so many suspect perimeter defenders giving up so few fouls is both suspect in theory and impossible to justify watching the tape. Or maybe Reaves and DLo are just way better than I think they are on that end. Their reps obviously precede them as truly excellent defenders.

[AussieCeltic]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

The disparity existed before the Celtics game as well as after, and I've repeatedly listed a myriad of factors that would far more plausibly correlate to an uptick.

Most of sports talk is just collectively writing fanfic and a telenovela for men though, so you do you. This is just for the audience that cares to reference analysis.

It actually didn’t.

They went

October: -1.7
November: +6.5
December: +3.4
January: +1.8 (Celtics game last game in Jan)
February: +11.9
March: +10.6
April: +8.4

It was also IMMEDIATELY after the Celtics game where there was an uptick. Like you can pinpoint it to the exact day.

I mean it must be the world’s biggest coincidence it happened right after the Lakers organisation complained about the calls in the Celtics game.

[KembaWalker]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

The disparity existed before the Celtics game as well as after, and I've repeatedly listed a myriad of factors that would far more plausibly correlate to an uptick.

Most of sports talk is just collectively writing fanfic and a telenovela for men though, so you do you. This is just for the audience that cares to reference analysis.

It actually didn’t.

They went

October: -1.7
November: +6.5
December: +3.4
January: +1.8 (Celtics game last game in Jan)
February: +11.9
March: +10.6
April: +8.4

It was also IMMEDIATELY after the Celtics game where there was an uptick. Like you can pinpoint it to the exact day.

I mean it must be the world’s biggest coincidence it happened right after the Lakers organisation complained about the calls in the Celtics game.

These stats were posted all last year and Lakers fans hope everyone just forgot

[QPR]

What is Chicago's free throw disparity?

[NyKnicks1714]

The Hornets section is missing some extremely important context: Hack-a-Dwight.

Charlotte wasn't getting a great whistle that season, one of their primary contributors was a liability from the line and opponents knew it. All those extra FTs were not an advantage, they were dragging the team down because Dwight couldn't hit them at a respectable rate.

Not saying the Laker free throw conspiracy is legit, but that is just poor journalism not to mention such an important detail.

That definitely explains some of it , but not all of it. That season their FT differential was +8.8, best in the league of course. The year prior though they were +5.2, which also led the league, and they did not have Dwight.

But really all you have to do is look at the Lakers strategy and style of play on both ends to realize their respective positions among teams in FTA/g and opponent FTA/g are to be expected. If someone wants to argue they have a tendency to get a better whistle in key moments, go for it, but any claims of a systemic bias or deliberate effort to have them win games has no support at all. The people who make those claims can never back them up with anything but their FT differential, which for the 100th time is a meaningless stat, since there's just about no relation between the free throws you take and the free throws your opponent takes.

[zimpy27]

For my gambler and conspiratorial friends on here, a robust analysis:

Beyond a pernicious plot, moreover, there is ample reason to believe this Lakers team should draw many more fouls than it commits. On offense, the Lakers rank 29th in 3-point attempt rate, per CtG, and are tied for second in the rate of shots they attempt at the rim. (The team with the highest at-rim frequency is Orlando, which leads the league in free throw rate.) In other words, L.A. takes a larger proportion of its shots in the area most likely to draw foul calls.

And on defense, the opposite is true: The Lakers allow the fourth-lowest frequency of shots at the rim and the fifth-highest frequency of 3-pointers, meaning they funnel opposing teams into the sorts of shots that don’t draw fouls. Teams with similar defensive shot charts include the Celtics, who rank second in lowest opponent free throw rate, and the Heat, who rank fourth.

Put another way, the Lakers have taken 435 more free throws than their opponents this season—but they’ve taken 513 fewer 3-pointers (ahead of only the Bulls’ minus-535 margin). Given that not even 1 percent of 3-point attempts produce foul calls, that’s a gigantic number of extra shots on which the Lakers can draw contact.

...

The free throw disparity kings of the 21st century are the 2017-18 Charlotte Hornets, who went 36-46 despite attempting a whopping 722 more free throws than their opponents. It’s hard to imagine that the league office concocted a conspiracy to help those Hornets, whose leading free throw takers were Kemba Walker, Dwight Howard, Jeremy Lamb, Frank Kaminsky, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Clearly, there’s more to a large free throw disparity than player reputation or the whims of referees.

On a percentage basis, those Hornets attempted 48 percent more free throws than their opponents. For comparison, the 2022-23 Lakers were at plus-28 percent (which ranks 15th this century), and the 2023-24 Lakers are at plus-34 percent (which ranks ninth this century) with 10 games to go.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2024/3/28/24114310/doc-rivers-milwaukee-bucks-lebron-james-los-angeles-lakers

If logic didn't convince them before, I don't know how more logic will do it now.

[Tor_Raps]

Lakers are cheaters lol

/topic

[madskillz8]

Beyond the obvious history of some very suspicious series involving Lakers, the problem with this kind of analysis is it paints over what actually happens on the court.

There are no shot charts that can explain some of the calls superduperstar Austin Reaves gets. On the flip side, the next time Lebron gets called for the forearm shove right as the guy he’s guarding is elevating will be his first. The way Lebron is officiated in general is maddening, both for and against.

Simply put, a team with so many suspect perimeter defenders giving up so few fouls is both suspect in theory and impossible to justify watching the tape. Or maybe Reaves and DLo are just way better than I think they are on that end. Their reps obviously precede them.

It reminds me this famous quote: "Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital"

It is always funny to see some fans ignoring all the video evidence of what's happening by finding one statistics to defend a disparity like that.

But history repeats itself, back in time Lakers fans were trying to convince everyone using statistics from that game, number of calls and etc to prove 2002 WCF series reffing didn't favor them, even though there is a video of the game with all these absurd calls and non-calls that favors Lakers, and also a ref's allegations of fixing the series for them.

[NyKnicks1714]

This isn’t very compelling at all

The reason it’s a conspiracy is because it happened literally the moment the referee union tweeted a whistleblowing sarcastic “sleepless nights” tweet promising the Lakers that change was coming for them. And it happened

The disparity existed before the Celtics game as well as after, and I've repeatedly listed a myriad of factors that would far more plausibly correlate to an uptick.

Most of sports talk is just collectively writing fanfic and a telenovela for men though, so you do you. This is just for the audience that cares to reference analysis.

It actually didn’t.

They went

October: -1.7
November: +6.5
December: +3.4
January: +1.8 (Celtics game last game in Jan)
February: +11.9
March: +10.6
April: +8.4

It was also IMMEDIATELY after the Celtics game where there was an uptick. Like you can pinpoint it to the exact day.

I mean it must be the world’s biggest coincidence it happened right after the Lakers organisation complained about the calls in the Celtics game.

There's as much evidence to support the idea that they started getting a favorable whistle after that game as there is to support the idea that they were getting an unfavorable one prior. You haven't demonstrated why one of those is the case and not the other.

And I can predict the responses I'll get: "as if the Lakers would ever get an unfavorable whistle", etc. Cool, but that's not anything.

[ChipotleWest]

Because it happened before does not mean it's not a conspiracy it's happening now to the most marketable team with the most marketable player, two years in a row.

[AussieCeltic]

The disparity existed before the Celtics game as well as after, and I've repeatedly listed a myriad of factors that would far more plausibly correlate to an uptick.

Most of sports talk is just collectively writing fanfic and a telenovela for men though, so you do you. This is just for the audience that cares to reference analysis.

It actually didn’t.

They went

October: -1.7
November: +6.5
December: +3.4
January: +1.8 (Celtics game last game in Jan)
February: +11.9
March: +10.6
April: +8.4

It was also IMMEDIATELY after the Celtics game where there was an uptick. Like you can pinpoint it to the exact day.

I mean it must be the world’s biggest coincidence it happened right after the Lakers organisation complained about the calls in the Celtics game.

There's as much evidence to support the idea that they started getting a favorable whistle after that game as there is to support the idea that they were getting an unfavorable one prior. You haven't demonstrated why one of those is the case and not the other.

And I can predict the responses I'll get: "as if the Lakers would ever get an unfavorable whistle", etc. Cool, but that's not anything.

Not at all. The whistle they got after was the highest 3 month span in NBA history and by a wide margin. It was also in line what the AD/Lebron Lakers had received the previous few years. So I’m sorry, there isn’t evidence to support they were getting an unfavourable whistle before. Unless you think 75+ years of history isn’t enough data to back up that claim?

[NyKnicks1714]

It actually didn’t.

They went

October: -1.7
November: +6.5
December: +3.4
January: +1.8 (Celtics game last game in Jan)
February: +11.9
March: +10.6
April: +8.4

It was also IMMEDIATELY after the Celtics game where there was an uptick. Like you can pinpoint it to the exact day.

I mean it must be the world’s biggest coincidence it happened right after the Lakers organisation complained about the calls in the Celtics game.

There's as much evidence to support the idea that they started getting a favorable whistle after that game as there is to support the idea that they were getting an unfavorable one prior. You haven't demonstrated why one of those is the case and not the other.

And I can predict the responses I'll get: "as if the Lakers would ever get an unfavorable whistle", etc. Cool, but that's not anything.

Not at all. The whistle they got after was the highest 3 month span in NBA history and by a wide margin. It was also in line what the AD/Lebron Lakers had received the previous few years. So I’m sorry, there isn’t evidence to support they were getting an unfavourable whistle before. Unless you think 75+ years of history isn’t enough data to back up that claim?

I didn't make the claim they were getting an unfavorable whistle prior to that date. You're the one who brought up that date, not me. All you did was show FTA/g before and after. On it's own that means nothing. You need to be able to actually demonstrate that they got a favorable whistle afterwards. And we don't even know if it's an either/or, a both, or a neither.