the charity stripe.

True Hoop highlights this NYT piece on Gary Boren, an investment banker and the Mavericks' free throw coach -- he got most of his method from Mark Price's dad (Price, of course, is the NBA's all-time leader in free-throw shooting percentage.) Watching college and pro basketball convinces you that the charity stripe is nothing but, as it's a tough exercise for anyone. I've wondered how NBA players can hit threes and long jump shots yet only shoot in the 70 percents at the line, and Boren illuminated a great point: when you are at the line, it's a different set of responses than when the game is on -- the mechanics are different.

Why teams don't hire more coaches of Boren's ilk is a good question. Ben Wallace, Tyson Chandler, Shaq (the epitome of this topic, likely), and most big men in the league are bad shooters at the stripe. Henry Abbott is probably on to something -- I wouldn't put it past more teams to hire coaches like Boren with complete control over this particular area if it means as many games as Abbott believes.