In?Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner pointed out that asymmetries in payoffs could lead to?collusion in sumo wrestling.? But in the current NBA Finals, there is a different kind of asymmetry in payoffs that should lead the Lakers to try to have their own players called for technical fouls.? Specifically, the Lakers should try to instigate double technical fouls.
I have been a bit surprised that Lakers coach Phil Jackson hasn’t had his center, Andrew Bynum, try to get in the face of Celtics center Kendrick Perkins and start a clenching and shoving match.
Double technicals are routinely awarded to both players involved in such an altercation early in a game, regardless of who instigated the altercation.? (An example occurred in the first game when the refs called double techicals on Ron Artest and Paul Pierce.)
Double technicals for Bynum and Perkins would be disproportionately costly for the Celtics?because:
Celtics center?Kendrick Perkins is on the threshold of a one-game suspension after accruing six technicals — five of which are of the double-technical variety (two opposing players being called for technicals on the same play) . . .
The same tactic might also pay Laker dividends with respect to the Celtics bigs, Rasheed Wallace (who now has five technicals) and Kevin Garnett (who has four).? It’s not impossible to believe that with a little Laker help, these Celtics could be double-T’d into suspension.
In the second game, the referees in one sequence showed a reluctance to call double technicals involving Perkins. Still the instigation strategy seems like a risk worth taking. At worst, one of the Lakers would be called for a solo T and the Celtics would get to shoot a free throw. A 50% chance of that bad outcome might be worth a 50% chance of a suspension for the Celtics center.
The rationality of trying to get technical fouls called on your own team is an example of what Steve Salop and David Sheffman call “raising rivals’ costs.”? Sometimes it makes sense to increase your own cost of production, if you can raise the cost of your rival’s even more.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Haha thuggishness of Rondo and Garnett, yet not Ron Artest? Weird,
Artest returned to the basketball court, and punched Pistons fan A.J. Shackleford, who was apparently taunting Artest verbally.[9] This fight resulted in the game being stopped with less than a minute remaining. Artest teammates Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson were suspended indefinitely the day after the game, along with Wallace.
I unsuccessfully tried a tactic along these lines, although decidedly more legal with a youth game I was coaching. We had no subs and were down by more than we could recover from in the fourth quarter. We went to trying to draw fouls, as the other team had several players with almost enough to foul out. The hope would be get enough of them to foul out that they’d have to forfeit. It didn’t work, but was interesting to try.
Something that would never happen but would be interesting to see is if a player fouls out, their points are removed from the scoreboard. So many reasons why that would never work, and you’d basically end up removing a player anyway just shy of their last foul. But it would give a coach a gambling chance to keep a star player in to make a big play, just hoping they don’t get called and 30 points come off your score. But hey, give a coach the option.
Don… weird idea. I don’t really like it.
Plus I think there’s a rule (at least in the NBA) about if you only have 4 players left due to foulouts, you may substitute in the most recent player to foul out and he can play for the remainder of the game. I think the injury-ridden Golden State Warriors got into this situation this past regular season.
There may be some caveat that every foul committed by a fouled-out player is treated like a flagrant (free throws + possession) but I’m not sure about that.
Anyways, in regards to the original post, I think such a strategy is very dangerous and risky. The worst-case scenario is not a simple technical foul on your own player; you could get a multi-game suspension for some sort of intentional instigation, the player and team could be issued not-insubstantial fines for unsportsmanlike conduct, and possibly more.
The NBA is a business… which is why you see star-player treatment. People don’t pay the big bucks for courtside playoff tickets to watch the bench players who are in because the star players got technical’ed out of the game. The refs and the league are very conscious of this fact, and as a consequence no one on the court, players nor refs nor coaches, treats NBA games the same way as they treat, say, the Olympics. Not saying the NBA isn’t entertaining but I am saying it’s not impartial.
Related, but different: a few years ago, my favourite team, the Montreal Canadiens (hockey), had such a poor power play that they scored fewer goals per minute with a man advantage than they did when the other team was full-strength. I lead to me asking the question, “Would it make sense to allow a team in hockey (as in football) to DECLINE a penalty?”
Why wouldn’t Phil Jackson use a tactic designed to get one of the Celtics’ starting players suspended? Hmmmm…. good question. Maybe because he wants to win the championship by having the Lakers’ best players simply outply the Celtics’ best players?
Crazy, I know.
While this makes sense, it practice this does not happen for a simple reason: it would introduce a horrible precedent in a repeated-interaction game. Players are in the league for multiple seasons. If the Lakers pulled this stunt this year, who is to say someone does not play dirty against them next year? (Kobe is always near the top on the list of most technicals.)
There is also a self-regulating phenomenon. The game is very much about customs. Kids grow up playing in playgrounds, calling their own fouls. Being known as a dirty player means you don’t play. The code of the game is not something easily dismissed by people who have grown up obiding by those rules their entire lives.
doesn’t really matter now – they managed to take him out one way or another.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4geaMUOX3w
watching the replay, if you think about what Kobe is doing on this play, he clearly puts his leg and foot between Perkins legs, then kicks his foot and leg out to throw him off balance. Plays that are dirty/illegal, that end in injury should be looked at very seriously by the league. It isn’t very good basketball when half the players are injured due to dirty illegal plays.