After Philadelphia's Game 6 win over Atlanta on Friday night, Joel Embioid took the opportunity to address a double standard in the NBA's caretaker.
"I felt it wasn't called both ways, especially because of the minimal contact that he gets on his point guard," he said. "When it comes to us, we don't get the same thing. I want it to be called both ways."
When Embiid said "us," he was not referring to the Philadelphia 76ers as a team. He was referring to the big men of the NBA who work out of office—a dying ideal of the player who Embiid says goes to a different extent of contact when applied to modern perimeter-shooting wonders including the Atlanta Hawks. Point guard Trae Young hits a foul than the standard.
Embiid said, "If we're going to call something like there's nothing [contact] on their point guard, it should be like that, if I'm touched they should say the same thing."
Embiid has a point. There is a different standard for jump-shooters than post pliers, but this is by design. The NBA rulebook explicitly allows inner defenders to have more contact than perimeter defenders.
You can legally jam an arm bar into a post player's lumbar region and lean on them with all your might, but not if you dare graze a shooter's elbow 25 feet away from the basket. So, you're not just busted, you're on the hook for one of the most punitive penalties in the NBA, the dreaded 3-point shooting foul.
Everyone knows that 3-point shooting has exploded in popularity over the past decade. But one thing is growing even faster: three-point fouling. And it's having a massive impact on NBA offenses.
In theory, the relative size of basketball players should not affect calls to the floor. A foul on a 6-foot-1, 180-pound guard such as Young should also be called a foul when committed against a player who is a foot tall and 100 pounds heavier, as Embiid. In fact, players of different sizes are selected differently by league officials. As the game becomes more perimeter-oriented, giving the guard more power over the game, especially on the half court, discrepancies in contact allowances that depend on location, size and shot type are more apparent than ever. Huh.
It was on full display at the first half of Game 7 in Brooklyn on Saturday. Early in the first quarter, Nets guard James Harden was awarded three free throws after he collided with Giannis Antetokounmpo on his descent from a wrong 3-pointer. Minutes later, Antetokounmpo had a head of steam and was running towards the rim in transition when Bruce Brown wrapped him, stifling his momentum. The pair became entangled, and Antetokounmpo ended up taking an awkward spill and went down to the poles. Call: Common foul, no free throw, side out-of-bounds.
For any neutral observer, it was clear to see that Antetokounmpo had approached him far more, so why was the penalty for his foul more damaging to his team than what he drew? It doesn't seem right.
Not that Embiid and Antetokounmpo aren't foul. away with. In fact, they finished first and second in fouls per game in the NBA this season.
Superstars in the NBA get calls; This is not a new thing. But they do this in different ways. Three people on that list are bruisers, two are dancers. Despite his relatively modest stature, Young committed more fouls on a per-game basis than nearly every other player in the game. Is it because he plays a more physical brand of basketball than players like Zion Williamson and Embiid? off course not. He is simply exploiting what has become a growing trend.
In 2002–03, there were only 0.47 3-point shooting fouls per game, and the foul rate on 3-point shots was only 1.6%. There were 2.6 3-point shooting fouls per competition this season, and the foul rate on triples was 3.8%. Even though we're seeing more than twice as many three-pointers now than we were at the time, we're seeing five times more 3-point shooting fouls these days than we were 20 years ago, and 3-point shooters are more than twice as likely to be dishonest in the act these days.
So what is going on? Why are 3-point shooters now more than twice as likely to have fouls as they were 20 years ago? Are defenders irresponsibly making more contact as they lock down shooters? Are they unaware of the serious cost that comes with sending a 3-point shooter over the line? No, the answer is far simpler, and is far more related to the NBA. This is hijinks, folks.
Over the past five years, a wide-open 3-point attempt by Harden has been worth 1.16 points per attempt. Young has been even more productive on his wide-open efforts since entering the NBA in 2018, averaging 1.35 points per attempt.
Those are good numbers any NBA offense would be happy with. But there's an even better number that 3-point shooters are chasing: 2. Using the NBA-average for free throw percentage (76.6%), the expected return on a 3-shot foul is 2.33 points.
This is how much the average trip to the line is worth after a foul in a 3-point attempt (give or take adjustments for a potential offensive rebound after a miss on the third shot). Players know this, and they are smarter than ever, which is why they are doing everything possible to chase this result.
Watch any NBA game and you'll see 3-point shooters sniping their arms through defenders, jumping into closeouts or kicking their legs. These clever techniques are at the heart of Young's approach as the league rewards them. The basket has no counterpart where legitimate bodily infractions often go unnoticed or for no reason at all.
Young's average shooting foul is 14.5 feet from the basket—and it's not like he's piling foul on 15-foot jumpers. He was fouled 76 times while attempting a jump shot this season, the most in the league, and does not include many more calls where he was coming off the screen and feeling contact, which That was portraying a foul called on the floor. , thus denying him three shots.
Of the 48 players who have drawn at least 100 shooting fouls this season, Young has both the highest average foul distance and the highest share of drawing fouls on jumpers. This season, 41.8% of shooting fouls against Young were in the form of jump shots.
Compare this to Embiid, which takes its fair share of exterior shots but works in Paint more often. The average distance from the basket on shooting fouls he took was 6.9 feet—and it was hammered countless times on a layup, putback or rebound attempt at the rim without a whistle.
The geography of contact allowances in the NBA is strange, and in an era when increasing amounts of offense are coming from the periphery, it's fair to ask why these jump-shooters still have it so easy? Or conversely, in an era when post play has been halved, why is it still so hard for internal players?
Three-point shooters already receive the biggest subsidy in the sport. Compared to players working inside the arc, they get a 50% bonus on their converted shots. Isn't that a big advantage? Do we even need to give them the opportunity to line up for 3 shots if they can make minimal contact? These juicy opportunities are very lucrative, and are directly encouraging players like Harden and Young to chase the whistle as much as they chase the bucket.
Changes are coming, that's for sure. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the NBA's competition committee is exploring a rule change this summer that would prohibit "unnatural motions" by jump-shooters used to attract fouls, such as That jump sideways or earn a trip backwards into defenders. This is a great start. We're seeing a lot of whimsical, whistling drama at very big moments. The NBA has to do a better job of aligning its rules with its values. Over the past 40 years the league has changed countless rules that have left the game open, sometimes with unexpected results.
Just four years ago, the 2017 Western Conference finals were changed forever when Golden State Warriors big man Zaza Pachulia slipped his foot under Kawhi Leonard as he attempted a jump shot on the left wing. The San Antonio Spurs star fell on Pachulia's leg, injuring his ankle again. At that point, the Spurs led Game 1 by 21 points. They would lose the game and the series, and Leonard would play just nine more games in the Spurs uniform before being traded to the Toronto Raptors.
In response to an apparently dangerous game, the NBA advanced the penalty for a defender who slides his foot into a shooter's landing area, making it a major foul. However, in recent years shooters have taken advantage of this by expanding their landing area. Players will move their feet forward or sideways (even at risk of injury) to draw a valuable 3-shot foul. The Bucks were insistent that Harden did exactly as he did in the first quarter on Saturday night, even to consider challenging the call before standing down and accepting the result. Too.
The NBA also has a rule on the books that 3-point shooters who kick their feet in an attempt to make contact must be called for an offensive foul, but the rule is rarely enforced this way. Officers are more likely to see a shooter fall to the ground and send him in line for three shots, whether it is the shooter or the defender who caused the fall.
In addition to enforcing the rules, as it has just been written, the league could do more to discourage shooters from seeking cheap fouls. As both Kevin Pelton and John Hollinger have pointed out, simply reducing these penalties from three free throws to two can go a long way in aligning offense and punishment on the perimeter. An average two-shot trip to the line is still worth more on a points-per-capture basis than a wide-open 3-point shot, so what's the point of adding a third shot? Well, one idea is that 3-point shooters often score a total of three points at the end of the game, and reducing the free throw count here will make these shooters a smarter play at the end of a few close games. But the league can only go back on a 3-point penalty to counter it in the final two minutes.
The answer is to not start allowing as much contact on the periphery as is allowed inside, not until the NBA wants to go back to the bully ball we saw in the mid-1990s and 2000s When the NBA's Tour Finals was decided by a game that ended with a score of 69–64. Nor is it the answer to treat post players like perimeter players, resulting in Embiid, Antetokounmpo, Williamson and many others shooting 20-30 free throws a night.
Still, Embiid made a valid point. The inner players are not treated as badly as the players on the periphery. Internal scorers must overcome tons of contact to get their 2-point buckets, while jump shooters tend to get their 3-point buckets. The answer is not to punish Young, Harden and others like them (nor is it to let the defenders punish them physically). But the goal for the NBA must be to fix the game before it leans toward chasing more minimal contact than ever before.