It’s not to cover for a lack of skill, it’s to change the unintended consequence of teams using something that should be a penalty as an advantage.
I’ve never understood why the solution isn’t just to call an old-school intentional foul when a team fouls intentionally. Carve out a last two minute exception for when it’s the “right” time to foul the other team on purpose, and the rest of the game, when they’re fouling intentionally, give two shots and the ball.
It’s absurd that there are talks at the league level about what to do about the fact that teams are obviously fouling on purpose to take advantage of the rules, when all those fouls are just called as common fouls anyway, and in fact the idea that someone is fouling on purpose is already something the rules have addressed. If somebody plows through Drummond on a screen on a dead ball – they did that on purpose. If somebody checks into the game, runs across the court and grabs somebody repeatedly – they did that on purpose. Let incidental contact go, and when they make clear they’re fouling on purpose and not in a way that’s incidental to playing basketball, call a higher level of foul.
If the refs just use their discretion to call what we all know are actually intentional fouls intentional fouls, the problem goes away.