Fouls and Market Size: Any Correlation?

Thanks for the research.

It’s easy to say something like small market teams get robbed. Much tough er to spend the time and prove it one way or the other. Now get back to work on your car cover.

I did not think it was a small versus large market thing… I think that it may be a bias towards teams that are tops in ranking and that have stars on them.

In looking back at the past 15 games the Kings had more fouls than their opponents in 10 of those games. Against team with stars, they had more fouls in 5 of 7 games. I excluded Portland, but if I had included it then that would be 6 of 8 games. Of the 7 games there were two where the Kings had fewer fouls, but that was only by 1 foul in each of these games (vs. Denver, vs Cleveland).

Out of the 7 games against teams with stars on them there were three games that had a huge differential in fouls. This was against the Spurs, Lakers (2nd game), and Mavs. These three games were all about a 10 or more foul difference.

Of the three games, two were on opposing team’s home court and one was in Sac. The two larges blowouts on fouls against teams with stars on them and these were the away or road games fo us.

This is all anecdotal and just looking to see if, inductively, there is a trend in the number of fouls called that is worth further analysis and statistics use.

What might be interesting is to look at the teams with stars on them and see how the number of fouls against other teams with no stars versus those with stars; the number of fouls on the road versus at home; and compare the number of fouls in the above two scenarios to the overall averages, as a baseline for teams.

This is kind of the tip of the ice burg on what would take countless hours to really understand. I think to get a true read on the entire question, you would have to look at home and road fouls, home large markets versus road small market and other variations like this. I fully expect the Kings to be a top tier +/- free throw team once Martin returns, JT figures it all out and Evans/Casspi begin to get the respect they deserve.

Again, good work and I’m still working on that car cover ; )

Conspiracy theorists probably wanted a different result than what you found, but it is great info. Good job.

I think that the Kings ranked 7th in free throw attempts last year, due in large part to the Kevin Martin factor.

It’s not where you play. It’s how you play.

Everyone, I mean everyone, is overworked and underpaid.

The refs are out to get us, they hate us and are the reason we lost (lose).

Long ago, when we had a more vested interest in the playoffs, every game was a spit at the zebra contest, win or lose. And so it is for every other fan of every other team. SactownHeart addressed the referee issue well and the influence of their contracted employer, David Stern’s NBA (I am a big Stern fan but…).

I agree with your conclusion: for the most part, what we see is true for the most part – certain teams and stars get the “benefit of the doubt” but it is also a factor of how they play and not just who they are.

Wonderful stuff and a nice start to whittle down the other influences. You can be StR’s Mark Cuban. As fans, we want it to be fair, but we don’t have an objective perspective of fair. I think you may want to change to crocheting a Boeing 767cover as much time will pass before this issue will be any closer to an answer.

I used your link and found what I thought was some interesting info at Statsheet.com.

In the advanced stats they have a catagory called Free Throw Rate. It is the number of FT Attempts divided by the number of FGA’s.

In the Western Conference only Dal, Noh, & Min, have a lower FTR then the Lakers. And, if you compare the number of FT’s to the number of possessions, the same 3 teams are the only teams in the West that shot FT’s at a lower rate. So, the Lakers get fewer FTA’s then most everyother team in the West.

As for the Kings, only the Lakers, Dal, Hou,Noh, & Min, have a lower FTR, and per possession LAL, Dal, Pho, Hou, Noh, Gsw, & Min all shot fewer FT’s per possession. I’m going to make an educated guess on these results. The Kings are right in the middle of the pack when looking at FT/Possessions, but quite low when considering FTR. So, I’m going to surmise that we get fewer FTA’s per possession due to our high turnover rate and large number of long jumpshots which draw fewer fouls than shots in the paint. There isn’t enough data to make a guess as to why the Kings have a FTR in the range of Lal, Dal, & Hou. I’ll leave that for other’s to discuss.

Of course, Dallas & NOH are the only teams in the West that commit fewer fouls than the LAL. While the Kings are called for more fouls than every team except Den & GSW.

As with most statistics, these numbers don’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t tell you how many of the FT came in the 4th quarter of close games or how marginal were the calls. And, there’s no way of telling how many more calls should have been called. Nor does it tell how many times Stars got preferencial calls or no calls.

But, I am willing to say that until the Kings learn how to defend without fouling, they’re going to lose a lot of close games at the foul line.

Whether you agree with the findings or not (I do), this is an incredibly well designed and developed FanPost.

First of all, this is a great research. I’m amazed with how interested you Americans are with sports in a genuine, even scientific way. I love it.

As I see it the main problem is not the referee favoritism in the large markets, rather than in the popular and more commercial teams/players. Most of the times, popular teams are based on large markets but that’s not always the case. To me, the “popular” factor is more important than the “large market” factor.

For example when the Spurs (small market) were hot, the refs always supported them (ie. remember the series vs Phoenix and Amare’s, Diaw’s suspensions etc – Phoenix is a larger market). Or the series against us (4-2) when Artest got suspended and they didn’t touch Manu.

Remember how the Bulls were kicked out of the playoffs in their series vs the Celtics 3-4 (ie. no flagrant foul/suspension on Rondo for his foul on Brad Miller etc plus many one sided matches during the series). Chicago is a bigger market, but the Cs had the super trio which was far more popular. The refs could have also stopped our huge -35 come back vs the Bulls the other day by calling 2-3 more fouls on us, but they didn’t.

Again, the Hawks are regularly unfavored against the Cavs (shot clock incident) and Atlanta is a bigger market. We also had one sided refereeing 2 years ago in the playoff series Hawks vs Celtics 3-4.

The Knicks are definitely not favored. They have no popular players and they probably are a role model team to avoid, same goes for NJ.

My point is that the research should be based on commercial/popular players and not large vs small markets. I’m sure the Spurs have sold thousands more jerseys of Duncan, Manu and Parker worldwide than all the Bulls in the post-Jordan era put together.

Sorry for any mistakes (Greek here). Better late than ever: Happy new year!

The more worms you find.

I’ve done a bunch more research and analysis. A much longer follow-up FanPost is in the works (stupid work getting in the way).

Very interesting stuff… can’t wait to get everyone’s feedback.