Are the Wolves Really Being Officiated Poorly?

Over the last week, much has been made about the Minnesota Timberwolves and their fight to be appropriately officiated. It certainly feels like the Wolves are losing the foul-calling race most nights. Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards have both showed frustration over the calls or lack thereof. But are the Wolves really getting a bad whistle?

A look into the numbers tells a slightly different story. Yes, Towns leads the league in fouling, committing 3.7 fouls every contest. However, he is also in the top-10 personal fouls drawn. He is theatrical yet strangely pragmatic. The blue-collar way he goes about selling foul calls — yes, it is hard, manual labor — has resulted in drawing 5.8 fouls per game. That’s tied for seventh in the league with dark-horse MVP candidate DeMar DeRozan.

Over the last three games, that number has ballooned to seven fouls drawn per game. KAT joined the group effort in fouling out Mitchell Robinson and Taj Gibson in Madison Square Garden, John Collins in Atlanta, and, most recently, LaMarcus Aldridge and James Johnson in consecutive contests. It was quite an impressive showing to cap off a 7-3 run over the last 10 games.

Really though, this is par for the course for the Timberwolves. They lead the league in fouls committed at 22.1 per game, but they are also third in the league in fouls drawn. Minnesota goads opponents into committing 20.4 fouls per game.

Again, it doesn’t feel like there is only a 1.7 foul-per-game difference between fouls committed and fouls drawn. It feels like the Wolves get jobbed by the referees repeatedly. So, what’s the deal?

There are a couple of things I can highlight from the numbers. First, KAT’s high rate of drawing fouls isn’t translating to attempts at the free-throw line as well as many of the other players who draw a lot of fouls.

Last year’s MVP, Nikola Jokic, is getting to the foul line less than Towns. That's hard to believe considering he’s got incredibly high usage and plays a rather physical brand of basketball. In fact, he is one of the players that I often feel is getting a friendly whistle when I watch the game. As we see with Towns, foul drawing doesn’t always lead to more trips to the line. But there are more ways to get a friendly whistle than going to the free-throw line.

Here we see two players, upset over perceived contact, taking their frustration out on the referee. Jokic got to play on; Ant got ejected. That is an example of a favorable whistle. Folks can argue over whether or not this is fair or whether or not race or status played a part in this difference in reaction. But the bottom line is that Ant ended up out of the game because he wasn’t getting foul calls he thought he deserved.

At first glance, the numbers tell me that he’s rightfully upset. Sure, looking back on that specific play, the contact that Ant was so heated about is minimal, but Edwards is only drawing 2.7 free throws per game. Watching him play, one might surmise that Ant's hyper-physicality would lead him to draw a lot more fouls. Therefore, the lack of foul calls must be a lack of respect from the refs, who do not respect him because it is only his second year in the league, he plays for a mid-market franchise, and he hasn’t “proven” it.

That can is easily debunked, though. Jalen Suggs and Cole Anthony are drawing more fouls than Ant while playing in a smaller market on a much worse team. They are just two examples of the many (81) players who are getting fouled more than Ant.

Edwards isn’t getting more calls because he’s not putting himself in situations frequently enough to get calls. If referees call every foul in the game, the NBA would be unwatchable. There are specific players who are physically dominant, like LeBron James or Joel Embiid, who, by my eye, get fouled almost every time they attack the basket. But no one wants to watch a free-throw contest.

Ant's key to taking more free throws is to put himself in position to get fouled more often. Edwards has become quite the knock-down shooter. He’s scoring over half his points on spot-up and pull-up shots. It’s hard to argue with this strategy when he’s shooting 44% on catch-and-shoot threes.

However, there appears to be a correlation between drives to the basket and fouls drawn. Here are the four players most frequently driving to the basket compared to Edwards:

You’re reading that correctly. Edwards is averaging just 11 drives to the basket per game. That strikes me as strange considering that Edwards is a force going to the basket. Ant’s 2.7 fouls drawn per game are resulting in 3.5 free-throw attempts. That’s 1.29 free-throw attempts per foul drawn, which is right up there with Embiid. Driving to the basket more often has the potential to be an incredibly efficient scoring method for Edwards. But, as it stands, he’s not doing it often enough.

So maybe Ant isn’t getting the calls he deserves, but that’s the way the NBA works. The more often he puts himself in position to get the foul call, the more often we should see him get it.