What do you guys think are the primary factors that influence how often a team fouls. I would think this should be pace independent, but maybe not. In other words, I feel it stands to reason that while a fast pace would cause more overall fouls, the fouls per possession would still be relatively unchanged to other pace settings. If you believe otherwise, I'd love to hear why.

But most importantly, what other factors do you think causes a team to foul more than another team?

Stamina(or lack thereof), defensive IQ, Athleticism/Speed compared to opponent being guarded.

I don’t think the pace would be the direct cause for more fouls per possession. I don’t think the sim goes”oh you’re playing fast, so you automatically foul more”. However indirectly yes, the faster you play, the quicker the players will become fatigued, and fatigued players will be prone to fouling more often due to not being quite as fast or athletic as they would be if they were fresh.

IQ; very important, young teams will be caught out of position and end up fouling more trying to recover. Not sure if the sim accounts for it but I can imagine pace could affect this since the players will be trying to make quicker reads and if they don’t know the system will be more prone to mistakes(illegal screens, etc)

Fouling would (IMHO) be IQ, OFF/DEF set, DEF rating for defender, STA, SPD/ATH and then finally certain game plan settings.

It's been forever (like well over a decade) since I read the dev chats about this but I thought a fast tempo would not equate to more fatigue. Tempo impacts how much of the shot clock the offensive team takes before shooting. It would result in more possessions but not more fatigue. Then again, it has been forever...

Oooh- stamina is a good one. I definitely wasn't accounting for that. Thanks for the responses!

Based on what I have observed, it seems to me that tempo does produce a slightly higher fatigue rate than does the lower tempos. It's not a dramatic effect, but it appears to me to exist. In my observations, starters seem to play a higher percentage of the MPG available under a slow tempo than they do under a fast tempo.

Perhaps that is a contributing factor to a potentially higher foul rate for fast tempo. Interesting to think about- thanks!