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Just watched my Bulls play the Lakers twice this week. The FT difference was 28-13 and 30-13 for LA for each game. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it was REALLY questionable how unbalanced the whistles were for both games.

I heard something that their FT disparity is the biggest in the league in more than 40 years. I know their current advantage is much more than double the next team.


2 simple questions
1-why do the Lakers have this discrepancy?
2-why isn't the media covering this story (or maybe they are and I am missing it)

If the league were slanting games to give an obvious advantage to their glamour franchise, this should be a huge story. I KNOW, whistles are inconsistent and certain styles of play/stars get advantages. From my eye test (trying to take bias out of it) it seemed unfair. But, maybe I'm wrong and it's a mix of playing style/stars getting a bit of love and their playing style.

Then, if this were a plan to boost playoff ratings, how would the league do this? Would the league really communicate directly with officials? I just can't see that happening-one email/recorded conversation and the story would explode. So, if it is a conspiracy, how does the league make it work?

Finally, for those posters who want to say "you're a Bulls' fan, no reason to complain with what MJ got" I TOTALLY thought MJ got favorable whistles, but it wasn't like this. And the other Bulls didn't get the benefits, only him (plus he was just SUPER hard to guard)

Even the Chicago announcers comment that "the Lakers have turned the Bulls into a jump shooting team tonight"

Bold of you to bring this up on the main Lakers board lol

Didn’t someone in the game thread say the 17-18 Hornets had a +700 FT advantage for the season?

I remember the outrage from that, it was insane.

It seems they've instructed their players to throw themselves into defenders rather than try to run offense or even make shots, and it's working.
Fewer turnovers and a bunch of free points at the line.
Yeah, analytics!

The High Cyde wrote:Bold of you to bring this up on the main Lakers board lol

shouldn't you be load managing

NCHeels2008 wrote:

The High Cyde wrote:Bold of you to bring this up on the main Lakers board lol

shouldn't you be load managing

Only on company time my friend

Looks like a normal distribution graph:

They are 3rd in league for FTA/FGA and 1st in league for opponent FTA/FGA.

The opponent FTA/FGA is easy to explain, it's Ham's defensive system that is a copy of what the Bucks do. Bucks are usually top 3 in the same stat the last several seasons.

Their own FTA/FGA is a bit more unusual but they have some elite foul drawing players. Reaves is probably a big part of this as he is excellent at drawing fouls.

Is there a difference between 1st and 2nd half of the season?

conspiracy it's the wrong word,just a "best for business"thing.

all it's pretty normal,everyone knows that,nothing to see there.

Yeah, I'm not sure it's a "conspiracy", but it's definitely one of the most egregious examples of consistent ref manipulation I've seen in this league/sport. But it's hardly surprising at this point. It's also easy to figure out why the League would want the Lakers to have an advantage.

And to those who say it's playstyle: Lakers are solidly bottom half of the league in drives to the basket per game (source: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/drives?dir=D&sort=DRIVES).

Since 2010, average FT differential for the league leader is +5.2

The Lakers are at +5.7

It's the most in a few years, but it's not really an outlier. It's about what you'd expect from 1st place.

And no, it's not the big markets who lead the league every year either. It's mostly small market teams (Charlotte, Utah, Milwaukee, etc.)

Warriors FTA: 1547
Warriors Opp FTA: 1949

Differential: -402.

There’s a reason they only show the first 15 on the chart, it’s so they can lie.

But then again, maybe the league just doesn’t want Curry in the playoffs for ratings purposes /s

You really should break this down and poll Lakers fans and non-Lakers fans separately

In the end, we all feed at the same trough

the_other_guy wrote:Is there a difference between 1st and 2nd half of the season?

– Lakers FTAs before 1/29/23 - 1270 over 50 games (25.4 FTAs/game)

– Lakers Opp. FTAs before 1/29/23 - 1122 over 50 games (22.4 FTAs/game)

– Lakers FTAs since 1/29/23 (post-Lebron meltdown during Celtics game) - 671 FTAs over 23 games (29.1 FTAs/game)

– Lakers Opp. FTAs since 1/29/23 - 432 FTAs over 23 games (18.7 FTAs/game)

this data is missing the last few games for LA where the disparities were 30-13, 28-19, and 28-13. All in favor of the Lakers.

You can't JUST look at FT disparity in my opinion. While not fool-proof (because fast break points factor into paint points I think), you have to measure it against points in the paint & number of 3pt and mid-range shots taken relative to your opponent. A 30-13 FT disparity for example makes complete sense if the team attempting 30 is close to if not double your paint points and attempted a good amount less 3's.

As a HEAT fan who believes his teams' been screwed out of quite a few games, after I see difference in attempts of 15 or more I always scroll right to paint points and 3pt attempts. It can takes some of the sting out.

It is pretty well known that the home court advantage for the most part historically comes down to the effect of crowds on the refs. The league has been trying to train refs to guard against this and home court advantage has been in decline in recent years.

But with a team like the Lakers, you basically have a supermarket advantage because the refs will catch hell in the media for making an error. That’s why the sleepless nights comment was so unacceptable. They rest easy when they make mistakes against some teams. The is no real conspiracy I don’t believe but to pretend that the difference in backlash in making an error against one team vs another doesn’t have an impact is silly. Refs going into Lakers games are scared, and wouldn’t you be in their position?

Message Boar wrote:Yeah, I'm not sure it's a "conspiracy", but it's definitely one of the most egregious examples of consistent ref manipulation I've seen in this league/sport. But it's hardly surprising at this point. It's also easy to figure out why the League would want the Lakers to have an advantage.

And to those who say it's playstyle: Lakers are solidly bottom half of the league in drives to the basket per game (source: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/drives?dir=D&sort=DRIVES).

Drives aren’t correlated to fts. The warriors throw the ball in the post a lot but are second last I’m points out of the post. Scheme matters here

Yet, I have no doubt that after every loss, the Laker's fans are complaining about how the NBA has instructed the refs to make sure that the Lakers don't win any more games (just like pretty much every other fan base out there after their team loses a game - yup Celtic's too)