A couple of weeks ago, I was watching the Sixers play the Raptors. Late in the first quarter, Raptors wing Garrett Temple got T'd up, and I saw Joel Embiid walk to the line to take the free throw. Hm, I thought. That's weird. About a minute later, the Raptors were whistled for illegal defense. And again, Embiid took the technical free throw.
I wasn’t sure I had ever seen a center take the technical free throw before, and I was at least a little bit surprised to see Embiid shooting it. He’s a very good free-throw shooter, both overall and especially for a big man: he’s made 82% of his foul shots in his career, hasn't been south of 80% since 2018, shot 85.7% last year; but Tyrese Maxey was on the court, and however you slice it, Maxey is a better shooter from the line.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Last Night, In Basketball to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.