My selective memory could be playing tricks on me, but it seems like LeBron's not getting as many foul calls this year as He did in previous seasons. I'm not the only one who's wondering this. If you've watched many Cavs broadcasts on FSN—most notably, last night's game in Orlando—you know that Fred McLeod and Austin Carr definitely think something's up with NBA officials this year vis-à-vis The Chosen One. LeBron Himself and Mike Brown may also have their suspicions, judging by the (again, seeming) increased amount of complaining each has done.

So, my hypothesis here is pretty simple ("This season, LeBron is not getting as many foul calls as He should be getting"), and in theory, shouldn't be that hard to test. Let's look at the data.

To approximate "shooting foul-drawing," I'll use FT attempts per FG attempt. This metric will not perfectly account for the fact that some shooting fouls result in more free throws than others, but it's still better than looking at "total fouls drawn" since not all personal fouls are shooting fouls. And anyway, I don't have easy access to "fouls drawn" data, let alone have the ability to separate the shooting fouls from the non-shooting ones.

That said, it won't be enough to simply compare LeBron's 2009 FTA/FGA to His FTA/FGA of previous seasons. For one thing, there could be a league-wide trend in foul-calling, which would affect LeBron's numbers but not necessarily indicate a bias against Him. So at a minimum, we'll want to compare LeBron's FTA/FGA trend line against the league average. Take a look (click to enlarge):



A couple of things are worth noting here. First, LeBron is indeed attempting fewer free throws per field goal attempt (.451) than He did in 2008 (.470); however, His 2009 rate of getting to the line is still higher than it was two years ago (.432), or at any point before that. In other words, it might have been reasonable for us to expect a tiny amount of regression in this area. On the other hand, we didn't necessarily expect that LeBron would be enjoying possibly the greatest statistical season ever for an individual NBA player. In light of that, maybe we should expect to see LeBron's FTA/FGA rate rise—not regress—along with all His other stats.

Secondly, the league average FTA/FGA (.309) has actually risen slightly from last year (.306), so at the very least, I think we can say that LeBron's drop-off in getting to the line is not symptomatic of a larger, NBA-wide trend. Nor is it symptomatic of a Cavaliers team-wide trend: the FTA/FGA of the other (i.e., non-LeBron) Cavs, taken as a group, has also risen (to .280, from last season's .255), which could just be the result of personnel changes, but (at least) seems to dampen the likelihood of a general anti-Cleveland bias.

But here's where it gets interesting. My brother (Alex, not Gomer) was clever enough to suggest that I look into whether (perhaps) fewer of LeBron's field goal attempts are coming from inside. Since shots under the basket are extremely more likely to result in a foul call than outside jumpers, could it be that LeBron's drop-off in getting to the line is the result of a change in shot selection? Let's define "inside" shots using the shot selection categories over at 82games.com: basically, "dunks," "tip-ins," and "close" (a category that includes lay-ups). Here's a season-by-season look at the percentage of LeBron's total field goal attempts that qualified as "inside" attempts (click to enlarge):



Ruh roh. LeBron is actually attempting a career-high portion (40%) of His field goals from closer-in. If anything, this makes it harder for us to explain the decrease in foul-drawing. Instead of FTA per FGA, we can now better approximate LeBron's FTA rate by using FTA per inside FGA. Here's a revised trend line (click to enlarge):



Now it really does look like something weird is going on. LeBron is playing the best offense of His career and he's driving to the hoop more often than ever before, yet His trips to the foul line are now less likely to occur than at any time since His rookie year? What could be the reason for this? Here are a few theories, in no particular order:

1. There really is a conspiracy to keep LeBron off the foul line in 2009. In general, I'm pretty skeptical of any NBA conspiracy theory, but even if you're inclined to believe it, I don't understand what the motive would be. The league's officiating staff obviously doesn't want to prevent the Cavs from winning, since the team's overall FTA/FGA has actually risen, as we've seen. Why, then, would they want to hinder LeBron specifically? Do they think His style of play could be a corrupting influence on future generations of NBA stars? I don't buy that. Do they want to keep the MVP race close, instead of the beat-down it really should be? That doesn't make much sense either.
2. There was some officiating bias, but it was during the 2007 and 2008 seasons, not the current season. I guess the reasoning could be that in 2007 and 2008, the league wanted to promote LeBron as much as possible, so they conspired to make Him look good, and now they've stopped because they figure He's already the best player ever. This could explain LeBron's tendency to complain; two years of living high on the hog could have made Him feel entitled. But it would mean that LeBron is now being judged by the same standards as everyone else, which would mean that there are a lot more misguided no-calls around the NBA than we previously realized.
3. There is no monkey business; it's just a 44-game fluke resulting from officiating error. In other words, the officials have simply dropped the ball a little more often than usual. I find this plausible, at least.
4. There is no monkey business; it's just a 44-game fluke resulting from the random fact that LeBron has, indeed, been fouled less often. You might have trouble accepting this one. For one thing, our subjective, eyewitness observation lets us see actual examples of no-calls preceded by obvious (indeed, occasionally flagrant) fouls. But our eyewitness observation tends to allow us to remember only those examples that support our (already drawn) conclusions. It's called confirmation bias. In other words, it may be that, yes, the officials are blowing their fair share of calls, but that this is not affecting LeBron in any special way; rather, LeBron Himself is doing something differently which is in fact making it easier for opposing schlubs to avoid fouling Him (or, if you prefer: opposing schlubs are getting lucky by failing to make contact with LeBron when they swat their mitts at Him). We, in turn, instinctively attribute this to the refs.

For what it's worth, I'm betting that the real answer is some combination of the above. The good news is, no matter what the case, I think it would be reasonable for us to expect LeBron's FTA/FGA to increase between now and the end of the season (or, failing that, then in 2010). If there is a bias, then more and more people will begin to notice it, and it will be harder for the officials to maintain it. If there is no bias, then we're talking about some kind of weird fluke, and it will likely correct itself over time.

In the end, the important thing is that the Cavs are playing out of their minds so far, and LeBron is having possibly the greatest season of all time, free throws or no. Ironically, LeBron's 2009 free throw shooting percentage is actually the highest of His career, so even if He is getting fewer opportunities, He's making up for it somewhat with efficiency. Let me say that I don't really think there is an actual conspiracy. I do, however, expect this trend to reverse itself, and if it doesn't, we'll revisit this topic, for sure.

Following last night's euphoria-inducing beat-down of the Celtics, after the euphoria and Fruity Pebbles consumption died down, there was some discussion about Doc Rivers' seemingly desperate use of the Hack-A-Ben strategy late in the game. The consensus in the media, it seemed to me, was that this was a poor decision—just look how it worked out for Boston!—but I'm not so sure.

Ben Wallace is the worst free throw shooter of all time, in case you've forgotten, so if the Hack-a-Shaq is going to be effective against anyone, ever, this is the guy. Wallace's career FT% is 41.8%; however, his 2008-09 FT% is currently a lofty 45.5%, which still makes him the NBA's worst by a considerable margin. Never in his career has Ben cracked 49.0%.

So does Hack-A-Ben pay dividends? Obviously, we cannot draw any conclusions based on one game's anecdotal evidence. What it boils down to is this: the Cavaliers' current Offensive Efficiency is 113.1—that is, the Cavs can be expected to score 1.131 points per possession—does Hack-A-Ben reduce that number, on a per-possession basis, enough to offset the amount of personal fouls your team will have to rack up?

If we assume Wallace will make 45.5% of his FT attempts, then we can assume he will score .455 points per attempt, which means, each time you foul him, he can be expected to net his team about .91 points with his two shot attempts. Of course, the Cavs will be able to rebound a few of Ben's misses. Offenses tend to recover about 30% of reboundable missed free throws, and we can assume that there will be about .545 reboundable misses per Wallace trip to the line. So the Cavs can be expected to pick up an extra possession about 16.4% of the time. Further, each time the Cavs do get the ball back, we can expect them to come away with about one extra point (I'm roughly averaging the 1.13 they score normally with the 0.91 they might score if Ben gets Hacked again). In short, a typical Hack-A-Ben possession should result in a net gain of about 1.074 points for the Cavaliers. That means that if every single possession were a Hack-A-Ben possession, the team would have an Offensive Efficiency of 107.4—worse than their usual, to be sure, but hardly anything to sneeze at. In fact, 107.4 is better than the current NBA average Efficiency of 106.8.

Consider this, too: 113.1 is the Cavs' Offensive Efficiency against an average defense. The Celtics have one of the best defenses in the NBA (99.9, which is currently edged only by the Cavs' own 99.3). And when the Celtics Hack-A-Ben, they're taking that off the table. So really, we shouldn't be comparing 107.4 (the Hack-A-Ben offense) to 113.1 (the normal Cavs offense). We should be comparing 107.4 to something a lot closer. Last night, I was convinced Doc Rivers was doing the smart thing, but now I'm beginning to think I may—gulp—agree with the consensus here.

That said, I'm certain that Hack-A-Ben is still the correct strategy for some teams in some situations. I'd like to try to define what those situations are. For starters, we've already reasoned that the strategy becomes less effective as the Cavs' "normal" scoring chances go down. So if, for example, your defense sucks (meaning the Cavs can be reasonably expected to score 1.25 points on every possession, or some such ridiculousness), then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. If, for example, LeBron seems to have decided that all of His shots that night will go in, and also that they will each be worth 5 points, then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. On the other hand, if your defense is amazing, consider just sticking with that. Or if, for example, LeBron is not playing because He had to travel to Switzerland on short notice to stop the Large Hadron Collider from destroying the Earth, then Hack Not!

So when the Cavs take on the league-worst defense of Golden State on January 23, the Warriors should definitely practice their fouling technique. But when in the game would it appropriate to start Hacking-A-Ben? You can't just start intentionally fouling in the opening minutes of the first quarter; your entire team would foul out. So how long can you sustain it? Assuming you have 12 men suiting up, you can commit up to 67 personal fouls before you literally have to field a four-man team. And of those 67, you can expect that about 21 will occur in the normal course of things. That leaves 46 fouls to work with, but even then, you're definitely going to want to leave a cushion, so to speak, so that your core players don't all foul out. Let's be conservative and say that you can afford to earmark 30 intentional fouls to your Super Hack-A-Ben strategy (you'll have plenty of opportunities to sub players in and out, with all those free throws being attempted).

Now the question is, how many minutes of clock could you eat up by Hacking-A-Ben 30 times? The average NBA possession lasts about 15.7 seconds, but you could intentionally prolong your own team's offensive possessions, so let's say you'll take about 20 seconds off the clock each time you get the ball back. Let's also say that you'll be forced to Hack-A-Ben about 5 seconds into each Cavs possession. Remembering that the Cavs will rebound some of Ben's misses, let's say that each Cavs possession will take about 10 seconds, total. That means each "cycle" will take about 30 seconds off the clock. Now, there won't be a full 30 cycles, because you'll have to Hack-A-Ben more than once per possession (each time the Cavs get an offensive rebound), so let's say there will be about 25 cycles.

That translates to about 12.5 minutes of game time, which is less than I would have expected, but still, it means you could reasonably start Hacking-A-Ben at the outset of the fourth quarter, and never have to stop. Of course, eventually Mike Brown might take Ben out of the game, so my recommendation would be to try to spread those 12.5 minutes of Hacking out across the third and fourth quarters.

Regardless of the timing, the Hack-A-Ben will severely shorten the length of each Cavs possession, so if you are trailing by a heck of a lot, it might increase your chances of getting extremely lucky (this was probably Doc Rivers' reasoning). But other than that, if Hack-A-Ben does indeed decrease the Cavaliers' Offensive Efficiency over the time period in question, then it is not a strategy that should be reserved for blowouts, or tight games, or losing efforts, or even winning ones. If you really believe it works (for your team), you should use it every time you play the Cavaliers, regardless of the game circumstances.

The problem is, it's such an uncommon strategy that it has the connotation of being either desperate or unsportsmanlike. That's why you'll generally only see it employed in so-called "desperate" situations. As a coach, you'll get blasted in the press if you make significant use of the Hack-A-Ben without ultimately winning the game. And against the Cavaliers, winning the game is generally going to be a long shot, slight advantage or no. Take last night's game: the strategy appeared to be a terrible one for the Celtics (instead of just a possibly questionable one), not because Ben made many free throws, but because Boston's offense suddenly went cold, meaning they made up no ground. Doc Rivers is getting blasted today for all the wrong reasons.

That brings me to one final point of discussion: the counter-strategy we saw LeBron attempt to implement on one of last night's possessions: shoot a crazy three right before Wallace gets fouled—if it goes in (as LeBron's did, although unfortunately they ruled that LeBron was a second too late), Ben has the chance to make it a four-point play. Worst case, if it doesn't go in, Ben gets three FT attempts instead of two. This is a very clever strategy, of course, but it can only be employed once or twice, I think, since the opposing team would merely have to "fake" fouling Ben, and they'd have forced the Cavs into wasting a possession on a ridiculous shot that was unlikely to go in. So ultimately, I'm not sure the "Calling Their Bluff" counter-strategy will ultimately tip the scales into the Cavs' favor (for long, anyway). At most, it may serve to put a momentary end to the Hack-A-Ben shenanigans.

In closing, the question "To Hack or not to Hack?" is far from clear-cut. At a minimum, I am willing to conclude that it is the correct strategy sometime, meaning if every NBA coach was both smart and unconcerned about his reputation, we'd see it much more often. The better the Cavs get (or, the more people realize the Cavs are for real), the more often Hack-A-Ben ought to make sense. I guess we'll see.

It's the most wonderful time of the year and for the fifth consecutive December 30, Corey and I and a few friends closed it out with a raucous celebration of LeBron Day. If you're unfamiliar with this most holy of days, every December 30, the faithful are compelled to make a pilgrimage to Akron, Ohio to visit the sites of LeBron's youth. After that, it's back to Cleveland for a LeBron Day party, i.e. watching the Cavs play the Heat, and the LeBron Olympics!

This year we honored many of the ancient LeBron Day traditions, dating all the way back to 2004, and started some new ones we hope catch on in the coming years. You can check out our previous celebrations for 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.



Since LeBron Day fell on a Tuesday this year, our normal group of LeBron Day pilgrims was decimated by something described to me as "work". Even Corey's record four consecutive pilgrimages-made streak was snapped. Nevertheless I, along with Friends of the Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times Brad, Ryan, and Mike, soldiered on to Akron. First stop, per tradition: Acme Market, site of the first LeBron Day miracle:





Gadzooks! Imagine our surprise to find that among the hundreds of shelves (I'm estimating) of Powerade at Acme Market, there was not one bottle of FLAVA23 or otherwise LeBron-endorsed Powerade product. Could this be the first LeBron Day tragedy?



But wait! The always helpful Brad and Ryan remembered that LeBron also endorses VitaminWater. After a bit of celebrating, we picked up some bottles of the Tropical Citrus-flavored VitaminWater and were on our way.

Our next stop was the Sprite aisle, in preparation for the traditional toasting of Sprite in front of the skyline of Akron. But once again, our plans were (nearly) dashed. Acme had sold out their plastic bottles of Sprite. Obviously, some other pilgrims must have beaten us to the store that morning:



We fortunately took advantage of Acme's healthy supply of Sprite in other containers. We headed to the checkout line where, for the fifth consecutive year, the cashier was not amused:



Now fully stocked, we could travel to the next site on our pilgrimage, Portage Path Elementary School, where a young LeBron was enrolled in the '90s. Eschewing the custom of posing with the school's sign, we headed straight for LeBron's boyhood playground:



This year, we came prepared, too. After a quick christening, it was time to hoop it up on LeBron's boyhood basketball court:











It went in.

After channeling our inner LeBron, the next stop on our itinerary was St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. Who could ever forget LeBron's four magisterial years at the school, when He won Mr. Basketball of Ohio three times and our heart all four? Getting the spirit of the 2008 LeBron Day, Brad commemorated LeBron's high school years at SVSM:



At the nearby intersection of King Ct. (which can only stand for "King of the Court" we must still presume), Ryan too extolled His four glorious years of schooling:



We headed down the enormous hill to the back of the school to see if, once again, the gate to the football field was left unlocked. And it was! Shortly after I showed our appreciation of LeBron's many seasons of wide receiving on this field, we noticed some other guy hanging out by the press box, thus cutting short our on-field shenanigans. We quickly made our escape.



Our journey led us next to Akron Children's Hospital, possible location of LeBron's birth (hey, you don't know!):



Circling back around on downtown Akron's confusingly-laid-out streets, we tried to find the Radisson Hotel, where you may remember LeBron held his NBA Draft Day party in 2003. But alas, what crazy hotel is this?



Nevertheless, we marched right on to the Grand Ballroom and reenacted that fateful phone call—from some Cavaliers-type guy to LeBron—after the holy ping pong ball was chosen:



Then it was southward ho to Mabel Riedinger Middle School, the location of LeBron's awkward and angsty (yet still sublime) middle school years:



We circled back around downtown for the traditional toast to LeBron's glory in front of Akron's beautiful skyline, and pouring-out of Sprite for our fallen homies. This one was for you, Judge Tubbs!







And then, per the LeBron Day custom, I somehow poured Sprite on Corey's head:



On the way back to Cleveland, we had one more stop to visit: James Manor in Bath, Ohio. We took a quick drive-by photo before the guard stood up from his chair in the guard house and we made yet another quick escape:



From there it was on to the sacred pilgrimage-ending place, Quicken Loans Arena, for the ceremonial Tossing of Fruity Pebbles to the Wind. We were just approaching the steps of The Q when—zounds!—who should we coincidentally run into but Corey himself, along with Friends of the Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times Scott, Aaron, and Max. It was yet another LeBron Day miracle!!!

With a mighty heave, we brought this holy sojourn to a proper close:







Now it was time to retire to Corey's apartment, where we were joined by still another loyal LeBron worshipper, The Other Mike (a.k.a. Moke), for a good old-fashioned LeBron's Birthday party. As we chowed down on delicious treats, we flipped on the Cavs game in order to catch a glimpse of The Chosen One:



For some reason, LeBron decided to let the Heat win this one, but we weren't too disheartened—it was time for the annual LeBron Olympics! The contestants battled each other through four grueling events in an attempt to collect the highest number of LeBron Lottery tickets, which would prove most useful in the final event, the LeBron Lotto itself.

The first event was a bubble blowing contest, featuring LeBron's own Bubblicious flavor, LeBron's Lightning Lemonade. Ben defended his bubble-blowing title from 2007, "blowing" away the competition (get it?):



Next up, LeBron Trivia—a popular event from years past.



Moke showed incredible knowledge of LeBron trivia, winning the Round 2 prize. Ben, on the other hand, didn't do so well:



The next event had technically taken place earlier in the evening. It was a "predict the score and various details of tonight's Cavs game" contest:



Max's clairvoyance helped him to a narrow victory in Round 3.

The fourth event was certainly going to be pivotal to winning the LeBron Lottery. It was the traditional "Tank for LeBron" competition, in which contestants must suck, but make it look convincing. They would truly have to channel their inner Milt Palacio to win this one. Points would be awarded for shots that hit the rim but didn't go in; points would be deducted for shots that went in:





Max proved the most adept shot-misser. With wins in two separate events, he was definitely looking like the favorite for the big prize.

Corey put all the Ping Pong Balls of Destiny into the hopper and took an oath, swearing he had not tampered with the equipment:



And the winner was... Max! No big surprise there. The prize for winning the LeBron Lottery was, of course, LeBron:



Finally, we sliced open the holy birthday cake and brought our day of reverence to an end:



It just might have been the most successful LeBron Day ever! We all had a great time, and we hope you did too. Happy new year, everybody, and go Cavs!