What is a “bad whistle?”
You’d think after years of getting one, the fans of YOUR basketball team would know what a bad whistle is. Every night those agonizing calls just aren’t going your way. You know the ones. The media bias is strong against your team. If they give you a good whistle, it doesn’t fit the narrative! The script literally says that your team shouldn’t have a good whistle because they’re not supposed to win. Rigged. Rabble.
Minnesota Timberwolves fans (allegedly) know all too well what a bad whistle is. It’s not somebody whistling an off-key tone, or one of those cheap plastic jalopies you order from Amazon to whip your middle school soccer team into shape. The bad whistle is the whistle that is always blowing. Like a chill northern breeze on the cusp of springtime, its drifts conjuring an uphill battle for your team to climb as it strives for victory. A bad whistle is the guy that nobody wanted to come to the cookout because he talks too much and only about himself, while doing so in a condescendingly matter-of-fact tone to gaslight you into thinking that you are inferior to him.
The larger concept of a bad whistle in basketball is hard to quantify. Box scores don’t always tell the most accurate tale of the game. Perhaps one could look at total fouls for each team on any given night, but a more accurate depiction of how a bad whistle affects a game is free throws given. If there is any objective truth to the concept of a bad whistle, it is the validity in the notion that superstar players and teams get the benefit of the doubt on touch calls. This leads to either players getting foul calls on shot attempts, or the simple accumulation of team fouls so players are going to the line anyway.
The notion that this disproportionately affects the Timberwolves is one that has followed the team since the Alan Horton “Ed Malloy!” call. If we use FT attempts as the variable for a black-and-white parallel of “good whistle vs. bad whistle,” what do the numbers from this season suggest about Minnesota’s officiating fate so far? That doesn’t take into account clutch time, intentional fouls, or garbage time, of course. However, it still helps paint a picture of what is going on behind the scenes.
Let’s start with the basics: Through 61 games in the 2022-23 season, the Wolves are shooting 23.5 free throws per game, bang-average and good for 15th in the league. Per Basketball Reference, Minnesota also ranks 17th in the league in Offensive Free Throws per Field Goal Attempt at 20.9%, near the league-average of 21%.
On the defensive side of this metric they rank 22nd, allowing their opponents to shoot free throws on 22.1% of their shot attempts, which is slightly over the league-average of 21%. However, it is a far cry from teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, who somehow only allow their opponents to shoot free throws on 17.9% of their total shot attempts. The Timberwolves are also only making 18.3 FTs per game, which is 77.3% and 21st in the league, right between the Detroit Pistons and Lakers. That’s not an ideal place to be, but simple logistics would say that failure to convert these free throw attempts at a league-average rate is doing more to hurt Minnesota than help.
Going through the game-by-game numbers paints a different picture of how free throws are affecting Minnesota’s season. I went through each game to determine which team was taking more free throws on each given night, who was making more, and who shot the better percentage from the stripe. After that, I removed all free throws from both teams to see if any potential FT disparity affected the outcome of the game.
Here are the per-game results for Minnesota after 61 games:
The eight changed results ultimately erred in favor of the Timberwolves, giving the team a 33-28 record on the season as opposed to the 31-30 in which it currently sits. That may not seem like much, but considering how tight the Western Conference is, this team needs all the help it can get. Those two extra wins could be crucial in playoff seeding. Considering the Wolves have been on the wrong side of officiating disparities more often than not, this is problematic.
Perhaps even more damning than the changed win/loss totals is looking at the total number of games in which Minnesota shot and made less free throws than its opponent while simultaneously shooting the FTs at a higher percentage. To only have 23 games in which the team has shot more free throws than its opponent is a low number, especially because the Timberwolves are league-average in free throw attempts per game. Considering that the Wolves are shooting a greater-or-equal free throw percentage than its opponents in 59% of its games, one would think that this shooting prowess would be working to Minnesota’s advantage. However, when the volume of free throws taken is not there compared to the volume of opponents with a “better whistle,” it is a moot point.
It is not necessarily fair to say that the Timberwolves are being penalized by poor officiating, but it is hard to say that the way the calls shake down is not having a tangible impact on the team’s success. Overcoming nights where your opponent is shooting more free throws than you 62% of the time is difficult. Perhaps Minnesota could try fouling less or complaining less, which is a working theory by plenty of sunglasses-in-truck-picture-people. However, the problem appears to be deeper than that.
Maybe the negative optics surrounding the Wolves will clear after the All-Star break, but there are no guarantees. There are 21 games left for Minnesota to overcome all of the adversity that is working against it, which includes the officiating but is also directly tied to Karl-Anthony Towns‘ pending return. It’s an uphill battle. But unless the general dialogue around the team turns more positive, expect the results and dissatisfaction to continue.
