Bank Shot or Underhand Free Throws? South Korea vs Rick Barry vs Steph Curry! Why Is USA Obsessed with Statistically Inferior Perfect Swish? Are Social Consequences for Different Technique that Bad?

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The free throw is supposed to be an easy point after a foul: a direct, unguarded shot 15 feet from the backboard. But there’s an art to it. The ball, most players and fans would say, should leave the fingers gracefully, make a wide arc, avoid the rim — and “splash” straight into the net, as the N.B.A. sharpshooter Steph Curry called it. With the help of analytics, other shots have evolved in pro basketball. But not the free throw, and over the past 30 years, its success rate in the N.B.A. has barely budged from around 77.

The shot’s stagnation stems from the mockery that awaits any variation to the “nothing but net” technique in the United States. Bank shots — bouncing the ball off the glass before it falls through the net — are derided as amateurish for anything but layups. But a devoted group of players in the Korean Basketball League, or K.B.L., have embraced the unorthodox technique."

This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "Nothing but Backboard: Why Some Korean Basketball Players Love the Bank Shot." The article is written by John Yoon. You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/sports/basketball/bank-shot-south-korea-basketball.html Zac and Don discuss free throw shooting technique. They wonder why more pros don't make a change their technique when they are terrible at free throws. They wonder if underhand or bank shot is the best technique.

Zac and Don also reference the following podcast episode from Malcolm Gladwell during their discussion:

https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/the-big-man-cant-shoot