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I was watching Heat vs. Knicks last night with a few friends, and each and every one of them is a LeBron hater. I'd understand if they disliked him because he abandoned his hometown and conspired with his pals to steal championships. But that's not why they dislike him. They dislike LeBron because they say he cries too much. He complains to the refs when he gets fouled, and he does so even when there is no discernible evidence that the contact altered his shot.

I'm wondering if this is true. I'm not sure he actually gets fewer calls than he deserves, and I'd like to know if there is any way to measure that.

Are there any metrics out there that show how many calls a player gets vs. how many he deserves? Are there "complainer" stats out there?

If not, how might this data be collected & metrics be created?

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  • a quick google doesn't turn up anyone tracking this yet. I'm actually a little surprised by that
    – wax eagle
    Commented Feb 28, 2014 at 20:48
  • 1
    I would not be surprised to find that Mark Cuban is tracking it. He has statisticians tracking everything he can think of for Mavericks games. But I'm not aware of him sharing any of his data. For an example, here is a blog post about refereees from 2006: blogmaverick.com/2006/01/15/ref-stats-update-jan-15th-06
    – Leatherwing
    Commented Mar 1, 2014 at 21:17
  • One very simple metric is the number of fines given by the officials for flopping, although they only account for a small number of cases.
    – 719016
    Commented Mar 22, 2014 at 11:37

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For now, the closest tracked stat to finding out who complains the most is probably the technical foul leaders.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/fouls/sort/technicalFouls/qualified/false

This doesn't always mean the infraction was directed towards the ref, it could be a flagrant foul, taunting, etc. It could also be argued that players who take the most shots (usually star players) have more opportunities (because of high FGA's) to complain to the ref due to a foul not being called that they think should've been.

As of right now, Demarcus Cousins and Kevin Durant are tied for the lead with 15 techs, and LeBron doesn't even make the top 40. This list gives you a starting reference to go by to see who 'acts up' the most in the NBA.

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