I don't understand why nba doesn't do away with this. should turn it into a flagrant, same as a clear path foul.

I don't have much sympathy for professional basketball players that can't make 60% of their free throws, but Bill Simmons proposed an idea that could work: Unless the game is in final 2 minutes, the fouled team has the option of shooting the free throws OR taking the ball out of bounds.

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Guys should learn to shoot free throws and no one would do it.

If a guy hits even 1 of 2 it's a win for the fouled team.

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This. There's a reason it's never done to the Spurs.

The point of the game is to entertain. Is what essentially amounts to pointing at a player and demanding he shoots free throws basketball? Nope. It's trash. Spurs are trash

Why isn't it an intentional foul?

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The point of the game is to entertain. Is what essentially amounts to pointing at a player and demanding he shoots free throws basketball? Nope. It's trash. Spurs are trash

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The point of the game is to win. If you want entertainment watch the globetrotters.

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Ah that's why your a passionate cricket fan right. Because all that matters is winning; not entertainment.

North Mexico brought it tonight

I really don't understand why it is not an intentional foul - they are obviously not going for the ball which is usually what players get called for when it is called an intentional foul but even as a Rockets' fan you have to make your free throws - it just makes the game painful to watch.

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The point of the game is to entertain. Is what essentially amounts to pointing at a player and demanding he shoots free throws basketball? Nope. It's trash. Spurs are trash

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The point of the game is to win. If you want entertainment watch the globetrotters.

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Ah that's why your a passionate cricket fan right. Because all that matters is winning; not entertainment.

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What a retarded rebuttal.

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Nope. Just the truth. The game isn't fun to watch in a free throw shooting contest for half the game. That's why the NBA should be embarrassed by how pathetic the game has turned into. Pointing at a player for no reason and demanding he shoots free throws isn't basketball. It's garbage.

Flop more and win your free throw shooting San Antonio.

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The point of the game is to entertain. Is what essentially amounts to pointing at a player and demanding he shoots free throws basketball? Nope. It's trash. Spurs are trash

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The point of the game is to win. If you want entertainment watch the globetrotters.

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Ah that's why your a passionate cricket fan right. Because all that matters is winning; not entertainment.

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What a retarded rebuttal.

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Nope. Just the truth. The game isn't fun to watch in a free throw shooting contest for half the game. That's why the NBA should be embarrassed by how pathetic the game has turned into. Pointing at a player for no reason and demanding he shoots free throws isn't basketball. It's garbage.

Flop more and win your free throw shooting San Antonio.

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Ok.

They are called free throws for a reason. Make the shot.

If a bad FT shooter gets fouled while shooting, why not let them decline then too? It's dumb. FTs are part of the game and you can't decline them for the ball because you're bad at them at any other time. Don't see why this has to be special.

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If a bad FT shooter gets fouled while shooting, why not let them decline then too? It's dumb. FTs are part of the game and you can't decline them for the ball because you're bad at them at any other time. Don't see why this has to be special.

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Good point. I'm not sure if I'm against being able to decline FTs for shooting fouls either, though. It would be interesting to see how it played out.

I'm sure the Spurs have done their research on this, but it seems like it takes away a lot of transition opportunities on the other end.

It kept the ball out of James Harden's hands. That's why Pop kept going for it even after Smith made 4 or 5 in a row. Percentages were going to catch up to him, and even then, who would you rather have the ball if your Pop? Harden or Smith? Smith by a mile.

Houston averages 1.03 points per possession for the season. Smith shoots 52.5% from the line. If he shoots his average and he's fouled each time down the floor, that's 1.05 points per possession. And it takes away San Antonio's transition opportunities, affecting their scoring. My math could be wrong, though. This is the first time I've really thought about it.

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Houston averages 1.03 points per possession for the season. Smith shoots 52.5% from the line. If he shoots his average and he's fouled each time down the floor, that's 1.05 points per possession. And it takes away San Antonio's transition opportunities, affecting their scoring. My math could be wrong, though. This is the first time I've really thought about it.

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Houston averaged 1.067 points per possession, which is 17th in the league. If he hits his 52.5%, they are slightly under their season average on points per possession.

I thought I had seen 1.03. I'm too lazy to look it up again on my phone.

from what I can tell, there is no "intentional" foul in NBA. Personally, I think its unsportsmanlike, but league hasn't been calling it that way.

credit to Pop for using the rules to his advantage. But league should make a change in off season.

There's obviously a difference between harden driving past a defender and drawing and foul versus a player getting a foul who isn't remotely part of any play towards the basket. Basketball isn't all about offense and shooting free throws, although the nba seems to like it that way. I don't blame the spurs for doing it, what bothers me is I don't think it gaVe them much of an advantage....it only free the game out for about an extra hour. Yes, it took the rockets out of rythm, but it did the same to the spurs. Spurs won bc of a 50-50 call the rockets didn't get at the end of the game.

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from what I can tell, there is no "intentional" foul in NBA. Personally, I think its unsportsmanlike, but league hasn't been calling it that way.

credit to Pop for using the rules to his advantage. But league should make a change in off season.

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Or the Rockets should learn fundamental basics in the off-season instead of the league coddling lazy players.

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what bothers me is I don't think it gaVe them much of an advantage...

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The way it works is sometimes it hurts you, sometimes it gives you no advantage, sometimes it gives you a huge advantage.

Last night, Josh Smith hit 12/26 from FT. That translates to .922 points per possession. The Rockets season average is 1.067 points per possession. So it was a pretty big advantage. If Josh Smith hits 15/26 FTs, the Rockets are getting 1.154 points per possession, which is about equal to the best NBA offenses ever. The other thing it does is it helps older players like Duncan/Parker rest more during the game and it makes it more difficult for some players to get into their groove, as Harden obviously struggled last night.

There is a very thin line of helping and hurting and if Smith hit just a few more FTs, it would have hurt the Spurs.

If you take this strategy away in the middle of the games, then you also should take it away at the end of the games. It is the same strategy in both cases and 99.9% of losing teams will foul to force FTs at the end of the game, yet nobody complains. The Spurs simply use the strategy more strategically throughout the game.

The nba should just do away with FTs altogether if you want to really add entertainment, by some of your logic.

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If they did away with FTs, Harden wouldn't be in the MVP race. So I doubt they want that.

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Of course not, they only want to abolish rules that hurt them, not the rules that help them.

Hack a Splitter used to be a strategy too. Then Splitter improved his FT shooting. It's not a hard problem to solve.

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Hack a Splitter used to be a strategy too. Then Splitter improved his FT shooting. It's not a hard problem to solve.

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Make 11/20 FTs and it ruins the strategy. If you are in the NBA and can't hit 11/20 FTs, you have no room to cry about intentional fouls.

I think it makes the game more interesting. It really adds a level of tactics to win and strategy in building a roster.

I won't get into the math and lineup analysis I did to come to this conclusion, but basically I don't think the Rockets will usually score less per possession by having Smith or Howard shoot free throws. There are limited circumstances where it makes sense to foul the worst free throw shooter on the court (more detail below), but not as a matter of course.

Two things I did not consider in my analysis would probably skew the numbers even more against intentional fouling.

First, the free throw shooting team usually tries REALLY hard to steal a possession back by rebounding missed free throws. My perception is that teams offensive rebound at a much higher rate off of missed hack-a-whoever free throws than normal free throws. I've got no practical way to measure this or factor it in.

Another thing I left out is that this kills the opportunity for points off of turnovers. The Spurs force turnovers on 14.7% of possessions but score 15.6% of their points off of turnovers, which means that they are 6% more effective on offensive possessions following a forced turnover, boosting their ppp from 1.08 to 1.15 (HUGE difference, the same as the difference between San Antonio's offense and Minnesota's).


IMO, if the Spurs are in a situation where both teams lineups are efficient on offense and inefficient on defense, then it makes sense to foul the bad shooter. If an opposing highly efficient offensive player is clearly intent on scoring, then it makes sense to only let him play defense for a few minutes to use some of his energy and let his mental focus run out. If the other team has sped the game up and momentum has shifted to where they are getting lots of fastbreak points, it lets you slow the game down (although a timeout is probably better).