Charting Greg Oden's Fouls - 1st 20 Games

We all know Greg Oden is having a good year despite the woes of his team mates. He is looking more confident, is developing his offense and is becoming a force on the defensive end of the court. As disjointed as the Blazers have looked most of the first 20 games this season, Greg has been a bright spot for us. If you are like me, you know this is only a glimpse of the complete player he will be for the Blazers for years to come.

All that being said, we also know there are some weaknesses in Greg's game right now. As Ben pointed out in the super excellent post Synergy Sports & The Blazers one of the issues is closing on his man away from the hoop. Centers and power forwards shoot a phenomenal percentage when they step out and face the hoop from 12 feet or more. For me, I would rather they be taking that shot anyway, but it is obvious that Greg needs to get tighter on these guys when they step out. The other area is, of course the most painfully obvious, foul trouble.

Keep reading below the jump for the numbers...

There was some debate about how these two things are actually linked, how Greg plays so far off when they step out that far in order to avoid more foul trouble. This is a notion I tend to agree with, Greg is worried about picking up more dumb fouls. In the spirit of looking at numbers engendered by Ben's post, I decided to chart Greg's fouls through the first 20 games. Fouls were charted by type of foul, and the position of the player that drew the foul. I will make a few observations about what this all means, but first here is the table:

Oden Fouls by Type and Position - First 20 Games 2009 - 2010 Season

General Observations

First, wow that is indeed a lot of fouls! No doubt a problem. 83 fouls over 20 games translates in to 4.15 fouls per game. of those 83 fouls 51 one of them or 61.5% of those fouls are against either centers or power forwards, in other words positions he has personal primary responsibility for defending, 'his guy', so to speak. That means he is fouling guys out of position matchup 38.5% of the time. That means every 3rd foul is on someone out of his position responsibility area. This would tend to support the argument that many make, myself included, that Oden's team mates need to help by sticking to their guys better so he is not put in so many bad situations in the first place. Of course a certain number of them are moving pick calls, but still all in all his team mates should work to get that number down to 1 out of  4 out of position calls on Greg. This would go a long way in alleviating some of Greg's foul troubles.

Observations by Foul Type

Loose Ball

Loose ball fouls are generally rebounding fouls. In general, I consider these good fouls, he is fighting hard to gain possession for his team, a good way to spend a foul. 14 on the season for 16.8% of his fouls are of this nature.

Offensive

There are good offensive fouls and then there are bad offensive fouls. Drawing an offensive foul call driving hard to the hoop against a center or power forward is a good foul, however, drawing a call on a moving screen against a small forward or guard position not so good. 12 of his fouls this season have been offensive foul calls, his best category in general. Of those, 7 of them are against centers or power forwards while 5 are on people off position, likely on screens. The off position fouls are particularly bad because this = turnover.

Personal Fouls

Again, all personal fouls are not created equal. In terms of how I am viewing this their are acceptable personal fouls and bad personal fouls. Of the 20 personal fouls on Greg, 12 of them I will call acceptable (personal fouls will be called, it is the nature of the beast). These are on centers and power forwards. The remaining 8 are bad, on players he should not be fouling unless they are shooting. Some of this is dishing cutters drawing blocking calls, but no matter, in terms of statistics, if I am calling all center/power forward calls acceptable (even though some are likely bad off the ball type calls) I am going to call fouls on all other positions bad (even though some are because the perimeter defender broke down).

Shooting Fouls

We want Greg challenging shooters, so again fouls on Greg defending shots are generally good. 21 one of them have been on centers or power forwards. I want defensive aggressiveness, these guys will draw fouls, i will take them. Does he need to improve technique, sure, but I would not consider these bad or dumb fouls. Now the 16 small forward or guard fouls tell me his team mates are putting him in bad positions a lot! Approaching every 1 in 4 fouls Greg commits are of this type. That is way to high. His team mates have to stop the ball more, or at least take the fouls when they get beaten so Greg's numbers, in terms of fouls, don't get run up.

To Wrap Up

I love Greg Oden. Awesome player, great person. We need him on the floor. He and his team mates have to work on keeping him on the floor by cutting out the dumb fouls. Based on my assessment above 54 of his 83 total fouls fall into the good/acceptable type (65%). That leaves 29 bad fouls (35%). On the 5 bad offensive fouls, Greg needs to do a better job maintaining position on screens to cut these fouls down. The 8 personal fouls out of position tell me Greg needs to be more mindful if these guys are threats to score before engaging them and the 16 shooting fouls on off his position players tells me that he needs to let some driving guards by and he needs his team mates to pick up there defense to help keep him out of trouble.

So what do these numbers tell you?