I was good enough that I didn't need the bank but these Asians' method could be

[theking]

...helpful to some American players that can't shoot free throws well even if their life depends on it i.e., Shaq  ...

The only time I really use the bank is at an angle but never straight on...Just free throws, I can make 9/10 but in game when fatigue is an issue, I'm down to 7/10:

A Viral Clip From the Korean Basketball League Could Change the World

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/znmVQFS7Wko

On my best days, I like to think of myself as a free-throw connoisseur.

I once watched hours and hours of LeBron James at the charity stripe just so I could count how many times he changed his routine (he used EIGHTEEN variations one season). One time, I took a magnifying glass to my laptop screen just so I could determine precisely how often Stephen Curry swished his free throws (turns out it was 84 percent). There was that time I got a NASA astronaut on the phone and asked him, of all things, how to cure Andre Drummond’s yips at the free-throw line (he recommended that Drummond wiggle his toes—“Works like a champ. Try it some time.”).

To me, free throws—and the idiosyncratic, superstitious routine leading up to every one of them—are like a basketball player’s fingerprint, their own little written signature. No two free throws are the same.

Except, apparently, those in the Korean Basketball League.

My guy Joe Posnanski texted me this video on Thursday night and I didn’t even need to click the link before I knew I was all the way in.

One click later, I AM HOOKED.

Nearly 2 million people have watched nine different clips of Korean basketball players making free throws. Why’d it go viral?

Because they’re BANKING THEM IN. ALL THE TIME.

I reached out to Fawcett, who put together that video for the masses. He’s a basketball coach who consults with a few Division I teams, focusing on strategy and analytics. I asked him how the hell he stumbled upon this beautiful thing. His answer was lovely.

“I kind of have this FOMO where I’m scared there will be an offensive concept that’s revolutionary going on around the globe and me not knowing about it,” Fawcett told me. “So I’m constantly watching other leagues to see if there is anything innovative I can bring to the college game. So, this time I thought I’d check out Korean basketball.”

Good thing he did, because now I’m thinking the bank shot is poised to make a comeback.

I’m sure of one thing: Somewhere, Tim Duncan is smiling. He was called the Big Fundamental mostly because of the bank shot. The world’s shot guru Kirk Goldsberry once figured out that if you bottled up all the bank shots made by the 10 best scorers in the 2018–19 season, you’d barely reach Duncan’s total in just the 2006–07 season. Check out this chart Goldsberry made for a delightful 8-minute video on Duncan’s bank shot.

Over at the Ringer, Yaron Weitzman did a whole written feature about Duncan’s signature shot and found out that, in the 18 seasons between 2003–04 and 2020–21, the bank-shot conversion rate fell from 77 percent to 55 percent. Weitzman wrote, “The bank shot, like the skyhook, may be on a path toward extinction.”

Well, not if these Korean basketball players have anything to say about it. So what’s going on here? Why is this all of a sudden working in South Korea?