[Sporting News] Yao and McGrady on "All-Call Team"

Great, just great. Original topic: "Maybe McGrady, but Yao??" on "all-call team", then you come out with this stats and "Grand Anti Yao Conspiracy" bussiness which no one is arguing about.

After your stats get shut down, you come back with " the Grand Anti Yao conspiracy theorists should have a real field day..." stuff.

Hey, FYI , Big Z isn't on that "all-call team" list.

Or maybe we should just read stats without watching the games to be an expert in NBA or coach.

Roll your eyes, baby, roll your eyes....

 

As I said in the other thread, Yao's fouls committed/48 is in the mid 5-range and in line with Shaq & the rest of his peers, and nowhere near the top of the league (Fortson, with nearly 13 or so, and Bradley with about 10). Given that he is not the most mobile player in the world and a bit slow to react I'm shocked it's not higher. So this part of the myth doesn't bear out either.

 

Wait? it's not reality that you care about, it's the meaningless distinction of the Sporting News "all call team"? Oh gee, maybe we can file a FOIA request and get the numbers and have a recount - yes, that gets a

How did my stats get shut down? You said to compare him to Ilgauskas. That's exactly what I did Their numbers are nearly identical.

You're an econ man, and at a fine institution - I trust you have more experience in stats than me.

If this is numerically not true I expect you to show me why. If not, lob some insults and be on your way... or just write "w0r57 ca115 3\/AR !!11!!!ELEVEN!!! like the rest of you do.

 

Wonder what his fouls per first quarter are on comparison with the rest of the NBA. He's got to be near the top of that list.

In either case, it's hard to see how a foul's per 48 minute stat is that useful. Given that how many fouls you have, and when you get them, has a very direct impact on minutes played.

 

It measures the number of fouls he is called for per 48 minutes played. The "very direct impact on minutes played" is factored into the stat necessarily, since it is fouls/minute. The more he sits due to foul trouble, the more his # is going to go way up

Let's take your theory anyway though and see.

Let's say Yao fouls twice in the first 7 minutes of the 1st periodr, and again 2 minutes into the 2nd -

So he plays 9 minutes in half one, committing 3 fouls

Yao plays 6 minutes in Period 3, commits a foul, hits the bench.

Yao plays 3 minutes in Period 4, hits the bench, plays the final 5 minutes where he picks up nimbe 5.

So In total, thats 23 minutes and 5 fouls. That's 10.something fouls/48 minutes.


Now let's take Shaq. Let's say Shaq plays 10 minutes in quarter 1 and picks up 1 foul.

Quarter 2 he plays 8 minutes and picks up 1 foul.

Quarter 3 he plays another 8 minutes and picks up 1 foul

Quarter 4 he plays the last 10 minutes and picks up 2 fouls.

So in total, that's 36 minutes and 5 foul's, that's about 6 fouls/48 minutes.

So why shouldn't we use this stat? The earlier a player fouls, the more he will sit, and the higher his fouls/48 minutes will be.

 

I didn't say I was going to be able to convince everybody.

Back when I was younger, I used to think that an unfair proportion of calls went against the Rockets - especially in 1993. In fact, I can list them, 12 years later

- Robinsons' tip-in that was clearly after the buzzer that caused us to tie with Seattle and cost us homecourt in a series in which the home team won every game.

- In the 4th Period vs. Seattle, Game 7, Hakeem picked up his 5th foul after a perfect block of Perkins, and his 6th foul after he breathed on somebody. He was only HAKEEM OLAJUWON for god's sake. They were terrible calls.

- late in the 4th Period vs. Seattle, Game 7, Payton or somebody for the Sonics launched a long pass towards the left corner that, on replay clearly sailed 3 feet above Otis Thorpe's arm But the call was out of bounds to Seattle.

And those are just the ones that I remember....

And you know what? Those were bad calls - but then, that's what I remembered, was the bad calls, becuase that's the kind of thing I was looking for so that I could whine about it. I didn't remember if Hakeem dragged his pivot foot on a dream shake, or if Vernon Maxwell pushed off his man. I wasn't looking for that kind of thing. I also didn't watch any teams on a regular basis other than the Rockets, and certainly not with the same type of fervor.

But you know what? There was no leaguewide bias against the Rockets that year. Did Seattle get away with some illegal D? Sure they did - but then so could anybody considering how byzantine the illegal D rules are.

It's the same way today - as a Rocket or Yao fan I'm more likely to remember him get slapped on the arm for no-call than to see him set a moving screen. Hell, watch Yao set up in the paint sometime, and then count "One one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three one-thousand" - think anybody's getting some leeway there?

The fact is, officiating an NBA game in a consistent fashion for 48/82 for all 12 players is next to impossible - there's going to be calls and no-calls. Therefore when trying to judge whether or not YM gets bad calls as opposed to the rest of the league, I'm going to rely on something a little more impartial than what I remember rather than the 50-80 rockets games I follow fanatically a year and the 15-20 other games a year I follow casually.

 

Because there is a difference between someone actually playing 48 minutes and getting 6 fouls (1 foul every 8 minutes) and someone playing 24 minutes and getting 3 fouls (1 foul every 8 minutes).

The argument can be made that Yao's fouls/minute # is artifically high because he gets his fouls earlier, therefore plays fewer minutes, thus making his fouls per 48 minutes # high. Conversely, maybe his fouls/48 minute # is actually artifically low because he fouls early and is forced to sit out, meaning he can't be on the court to actually be getting those fouls called on him.

It's the same reason why you can't look at PPG or RPG or any stat solely on a per 48 minute basis. I don't think Ben Gordan would actually score 30+ points per game if he actually played 48 minutes every night, even though that is what he is averaging.

 

Wow, let's watch the Stats instead of watching games from now on.

 

If that is your concern, then divide it by 48 and just call it fouls/minute. The /48 minute thing is a dead end you are chasing. I'm not trying to figure out how much a bionic Yao would foul if he played 48/82 - I'm trying to see how likely he is to be whistled for a foul while on the floor - and the answer is about the same as any other big man.

If you have different information then let's hear it.

 

You do realize incredulous about him being on an "all call team" and "Grand conspiracy theory" are a long way apart? I assume you can read and understand what's being discussed in "THIS" thread?

And you were actually using that list in your first post to support your argument? How ironic.

FYI, I'm not one of those "conspiracy theoriests", and I believe most of the people here are not. I do believe though Yao Ming has not had enough respect from the refs.

Well, the way you use it the first time, you didn't even consider how the games are played in making comparisons. That's a shot down. I'm sorry it hurts your feelings, it wan't my intension to do so.

The fact is, Yao plays none less-aggressive than Z, yet he gets less calls. Yao is also more difficult to defend, given his length, and weight.

Well, I agree it's not about "conspiracy theory", yet it kind shows Yao gets not enough respect from the refs.

Hey thanks. I know enough stats to know it needs to be interpreted carefully. a Statistician who can only get the numerics right might be the worse statistician.

 

Do you watch enough Cavs games to know this or are you just making this up based on conjecture?

How big is the statistical difference between the two, - Yao shoots what, 0.6 less times per game than Ilgauskas, and takes 0.7 less Free throw attempts per game?

Please let me know if this is a statistically significant difference. I'm not sure that it is, but I'm no math guy so I defer to your statistical expertise in this area.

Like I said before, you can grasp on to your fractional differences here and there all you want - but Yao gets treated similarly to his peer group of players on both ends of the court by all available objective evidence.

 

me too

same

same

Because they play a lot less and/or take more spot up jumpers.

I wouldn't mind a little bit

same

Higher rate than what - Jon Barry? Wang Zhi-Zhi? The Harlem Globetrotters? Prove it.

I see him b**** and moan a lot and he even got a T yesterday (although Danny Fortson leads the league in T's, flagrants overall and fouling overall- not sure if this is going to help anybody that much).

See above, Fortson is whistled more often than anybody in the league. You want Yao to be reffed like Fortson? That's certainly not going to help us that much.

 

When the fouls CONSISTENTLY called against Yao aren't CONSISTENTLY no-calls on the other end of the court, I'll feel better about NBA officiating. In the meantime, the Sporting News can shove their all-call team article up the ref's whistle.

 

And the dissing continues, folks.

Rather than credit the Rockets play, now it's the referees' fault that the Rockets win. T-Mac in the refs' ear all of the time? I agree with the poster above, T-Mac stares but doesn't yap much at all. Try Kobe, TSN hack.

McGrady does go to the line a fair amount but he doesn't always get the call when he drives to the hoop either, so he seems to get pretty fair officiating overall, perhaps a bit of star treatment.

To continue Sabonis' point vs. Sam, T-Mac scores much more than Yao does and drives the paint a fair amount. Other than the second Sac home game last month, I never found myself mystified at why he is not getting calls.

I especially don't often find myself saying "well, Yao got hacked, but he got away with one a minute ago", or "since Yao's been living at the line, I guess the refs decided to let the hack on Yao go to keep the game moving".

I do believe though that ever since the infamous Seattle foul-out game that he has finally been getting some good treatment from the refs. Not superstar treatment though, so I think the writer is full of it.

 

I watch enough Cavs game to get the anecdotal impression to say Yao plays none less-agressive than big Z. And it's not like Z is someone who gets a lot of calls

Before you jump on that, let me point out that our stats analysis needs to based on SOME assumptions, something like "so and so players are likely to be fouled at the equal rate". That's the beauty of stats, all stat models relies on some assumption - something you may call anecdotal - when being appied to analyse a situation. No stat, by itself can support your argument (I assume your null hypothesis is that Yao is refreed no different than any other center in the L. BTW, even your stats show no significant difference between the fouls drawn by two players, that is no to say your argument is true, such is the nuance of statistical testing, type 1 and type 2 errors). In this situation in particular, since actual foulscommited but not called are not observable, you need stronger assumptions to infer somehow your stats can reveal the unobservable variable.

If there is a stat that can show a player that is fairly or unfairly refereed, then we won't heat so many complaints about refereeing, and JVG doesn't need to send the L some TAPE to get the L's attention how Yao is being refereed. He would just draw some stats. Or, if you look at the other side, the L would simple draw some stats to refute JVG.

BTW, I don't know if that stat is significant or not between Yao and Z since I don't know the STD, but either way. It doesn't matter that much.

So much for the stats.

That being said. I truly admire your ability to pump your chest and say "I'm right, you all are wrong" when no one is actually disagreeing with you.

sincerely

 

To summarize everything about Yao's no-calls: We wish Yao would get star treatment. We wish he would get the benefit of the doubt.

SamFisher has brought evidence that shows Yao is not being picked on by the refs any more than other big men in the league. (Other than the silly tech on him vs Sac). From what I have read, SamFisher may agree with us all that Yao should go to the line more/get more fouls called for him, BUT many other players are going through this same thing and it's not just Yao.

 

Didn't JVG send the league a video-tape chronicling the perceived slighting by the referees?

I don't think he did the same with the other guys on the team. Obviously he feels that Yao is being somewhat mistreated by the referrees.

If our coach feels strongly about this, then why not acknowledge that there might be an issue. If the complaints can get some better treatment by the refs why are we as Rocket fans against it? I've even heard the radio guys complain before.

I think the general consensus amongst Rocket fans is that Yao does get shafted a bit. Statistics can't really tell much in this situation. I'm not sure - there's no stat for non-calls is there? Or bad calls? Seeing is believing. I may not have watched Big Z in Cleveland too much but I do see the opposing centers nearly every game and am very sure that if Yao pulled the same stuff that (for example) Jason Collins pulls, he'd probably foul out pretty quick. No conspiracy - but it's hard to ref a guy that big.

He might be getting some leeway on those high-picks though. I don't know enough about the official rules to say one way or the other.

 

Langal has a good point. JVG sends tapes to the league office on a regular basis due to Yao's inconsistent treatment from the refs. Heck, he even made it a point to put the onus on the refs by having Yao play through bogus calls and questionable one way tick tacks so that Yao would foul out a few times to get the point across. AFAIK, he doesn't do this for TMac and nor have I heard of any other coaches doing this. I would venture a guess that JVG has a slightly better idea than SamFisher as to how Yao is getting treated by the refs seeing as how he's the coach and all. I'd imagine that JVG wouldn't be going through all this trouble if Yao were treated no better or worse than his peers. But then again, JVG is a YOF so I guess we'd better disregard what he thinks lest anyone else who agrees with him and not SamFisher is labeled a YOF - a virtual deathsentence on ClutchBBS.