NBA officitating and the "All-Star Treatment"

NBA playoffs have been in full swing since last week and teams are starting to punch their tickets into the second round. One thing I've noticed in the first round, and its something that seems to flare up around this time every year, are the the preferential calls given to the NBA's premiere players - the so called "All-Star Treatment." Two series where this seems to be most prominent are the Cleveland/Detroit and Portland/Houston series. I decided to take a look at the box scores from the eight combined games in these two series and noticed some interesting trends.

Yao Ming, Houston's All-Star center, combined for 8 personal fouls in the first two games in Portland but committed only 4 fouls in the last two at Houston, including only one foul in 44 minutes of play on Sunday. Meanwhile, Portland's centers, Joel Pryzbilla and Greg Oden, have combined for 18 fouls in the two home games and another 18 on the two road games. Why have Yao Ming's fouls been cut in half at home, while Oden and Pryzbilla have been called for the same amount? I've watched Yao get away with numerous fouls while Portland gets called for breathing on him. In the last two games I've seen Brandon Roy drive to paint three or four times and see Yao leave his feet, a cardinal sin for a big man, and knock Roy down with no foul being called. As a team, Houston committed 49 team fouls in the first two games, the same amount as Portland. However, in the last two games, Houston has committed 34 fouls compared to Portland's 52. Quite the discrepancy.

An even more startling trend is in the Cleveland/Detroit series. Lebron James, the clear candidate for this year's MVP award, took 59 free throws in their first round sweep of the Pistons. That is one more attempt than the entire Piston's team took all series. You read that right. In three of the four games in the series, James had more free throw attempts than Detroit. Another thing that stuck out to me was James committed only 5 personal fouls the entire series, three of which came in the deciding game 4.

My biggest complaint with the NBA has always been the inconsistent refereeing and the treatment the NBA's elite players receive. And with Los Angeles and Cleveland on a crash course to meet in the Finals, the inevitable free throw battle between Kobe and LeBron should be a classic.