Warrior Double Whammy

Click here for the larger image.

Golden State, we're looking at you.  We're not looking at you because that new logo looks so clean on the bright hardwood behind you.  We're not looking at you because you're sporting the freshest new uniform in the Association.  (No small feat:  the Jazz and Sixers have fine-looking fresh unis, too, but you have that Bay Bridge logo incorporated into the side trim on your shorts.  Perfection.)

Nope, we're looking at you for other reasons -- other soft reasons.  The FT/FGA ratio is a statistic that measures how often a team is getting to the line.  Take the total foul attempts, divide by the total number of field goals and you have your stat.  Big number = you're getting to the line a lot.  Low numbers indicate just the opposite.  

On offense, Golden State is last in the league in FT/FGA ratio at 0.168.  By contrast, Oklahoma City is leading the league with a ratio (0.332) that indicates they are getting to the charity stripe at a rate which is almost double what the Warriors produce.  Not only are the Warriors last, but they are last by quite a bit.  Memphis is in the penultimate spot at 0.210 -- meaning that the Warriors trail their nearest rival by 25%.  One big culprit is Andris Biedrins, who has only taken 14 free throws for the year.  To make matters worse, he's only made 4 of those 14.

Offensive FT/FGA

So the Warriors don't get to the line much.  There's a second part that makes it much, much worse.  If we look at FT/FGA from the defensive point-of-view  (i.e., the rate at which the other team makes it to the line), the Warriors are dead-last again!  Their opponents have amassed a FT/FGA ratio of 0.303.  Golden State is fouling early, late, and often.  Combine rapid-fire fouling with a low number of attempts for yourself and you have a recipe for losing.

Defensive FT/FGA

How does this add up?  The end result is that the Warriors are taking, on average, 10.5 fewer attempts per game than their opponents, and as a result, they are scoring 9.8 fewer free throw points per game.  It should be noted that Golden State scores 101.4 total points per game and gives up 107.0, so eliminating this free throw discrepancy would cover that margin and then some.