[Thinking Like Morey] Kevin Martin, Kyle Lowry, and the Value of Fouls

In the wake of the Kevin Martin trade, a lot has been said about his ability to draw fouls, and the positive impact that has on our team's offense. I figured I'd do some digging into the tangible, statistical effects that has on a team's success. Get into the Mind of Morey, so to speak. I'll divide this up into two sections--"Fouls are good" and "we will draw tons of fouls."




SECTION ONE--FOULS ARE GOOD, DUH:

Legendary Coach Dean Smith once said "The key statistic is still to get to the foul line." Fundamentally, he's right There are plenty of reasons why this is the case:

FIRST--getting to the line is the most efficient way to use a possession.

Take the example of Kyle Lowry. He's a 40.6% shooter this year. This means an average Lowry shot from the field nets .802 points. When fouled, Lowry is an 80% free throw shooter. So each time Lowry gets fouled in the act of shooting nets him an average of 1.6 points It's clear why Kyle Lowry seeks out contact, and why Morey loves him for it: Statistically, Lowry is likely to produce twice as many points on a possession where he gets fouled than on a possession where he takes any other kind of shot...and that's without even factoring in the chance at an "and-1".

Obviously, Lowry is an extreme example, given his poor shooting from the field and good free throw shooting. But even given the league averages (about 46% from the field and 77% from the line), the average player will produce 1.54 points per trip to the line, versus .92 points per shot from the field. Even factoring in 3 point shots, an average shooter taking a 3 (at 36.7%) produces an average of only 1.1 points/shot. In any event, getting to the line produces more points than any other use of a possession, And it isn't even close.

SECOND--The Bonus

Everyone--Bullard, Worrell, Morey--has made a comment about Martin's foul drawing getting the Rockets in the bonus earlier. But what is the actual statistical effect of that?

These numbers are old (from 05 i think), but they also demonstrate the joys of having lots of foul-drawing players:



As you can see, when in the bonus, the average NBA team produces 6 more points per hundred possessions. The best teams according to this metric produce around 10 more points per hundred possessions when in the bonus. The Rockets, as I will show below, stand poised to be one of those teams. While that may not seem like a lot, It's often the difference between winning and losing. A good "bonus" team (a team which spends a lot of time in the bonus, and draws and converts a lot of fouls during that time), will spend upwards of 30 percent of their possessions averaging close to .1 points per possession than they otherwise would.

Given the average team uses about 96 posessions per game, having a third of those be posessions "in the bonus" nets us somewhere near 3 extra ppg. Over the course of a season, that's quite a few wins.

THIRD--The ability to draw fouls has a number of other effects that are difficult to quantify.

From getting opponents in foul trouble to breaking scoring droughts to silencing a hostile crowd, drawing fouls has a myriad of positive effects on a team.

CONCLUSION: Based on shooting efficiency, the bonus, and other factors, it's obvious that a team should try to draw fouls, and acquire players who are skilled in that regard.





SECTION TWO: WE WILL DRAW FOULS. LOTS OF FOULS

We've established that the ability to draw fouls radically increases scoring efficiency and gets, in effect, cheap points from the bonus, among other ancillary benefits. So will we be able to take advantage of these factors?

HELL YES.

Let's look first at Kevin Martin. Martin draws fouls like Chacho's, the House of Pies, and Whataburger draw drunk people at 3AM. To quote a slam article on Kevin Martin:

"Martin was fouled on an unbelievable 21% of his field goal attempts last season; Only Dwight Howard, Marc Gasol, Shaq, Gerald Wallace, and Devin Harris were fouled at a higher rate. (LeBron was at 19%, Wade was at 17%, Roy was at 14%, Durant was at 13%, and Bryant was at 12%, for some points of reference.)"

Umm...wow. Combine that with the fact that he is a career 85% free throw shooter, and we're talking lots of cheap, easy, efficient and delicious points.

BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE--Kyle Lowry draws fouls on 19.6 percent of his shots(more than lebron)...and is an 80% free throw shooter.

AND STILL MORE--Yao gets whacked on 20.7% of his attempts, and shoots 84.5% from the line.

For those playing the home game, that's 3(three) players on our roster who are top-ten in the league at drawing fouls, all of whom shoot more than 80% from the line. Given the information in section one (uhhh...fouls are good, mmkay?), Morey has built a team which, especially combined with Adelman's offense, has the potential to be mind-blowingly efficient. Take all the advantages in the first section, and supercharge them to consider the skill of our players at drawing fouls and shooting foul shots. In Morey We Trust.


Hope y'all find this interesting. I understand it's nothing novel (subjectively, this is common basketball sense), but the numbers certainly give a better idea why Morey values players like Lowry, Martin, and Yao so highly. If you actually had the stomach to read all this, I hope you enjoy. :grin: