Quickley’s free-throw percentage last season was the second best in Kentucky history, behind only Tyler Herro, who shot 93.5 percent from the line in 2018-19.

Quickley’s percentage at the foul line last season was higher than the best college seasons from the best free-throw shooters in N.B.A. history. At the top of that list was Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who shot 89.4 percent in his best year at Davidson.

Quickley does the things that are most coveted in today’s league, Calipari said, particularly driving into the lane without needing the help of a screen. Quickley also led the Wildcats with a 42.8 percent 3-point rate.

The Knicks could use the help, too. They ranked 27th out of 30 N.B.A. teams in 3-point shooting and were dead last in free-throw percentage.

Starting to warm up to the kid.

ptmilo: here are some unusual on/off stats. this is the on/off #s over the last two years for opponent shots per 100 taken at the rim 3pt line (on average, higher quality shots) and opp FT per 100. one benefit to these is they are much less volatile/noise than /- or rapm. this is not adjusted for the benefit mitch and noel get from coming off the bench:

rim or 3 per 100
mitch 72.9 on 71.6 off
noel 71.3 on 69.6 off
gobert 62.3 on 65.3 off
embiid 64.9 on 68.1 off

FTA/100
mitch 26.3 on 23.9 off
noel 23.4 on 21.0 off
gobert 20.3 on 25.3 off
embiid 22.9 on 25.7 off

ps i think both mitch and noel are plus defenders and i am very pro mitch!

Those are interesting counterarguments…Rudy and Embiid better at hedging and staying home and on their feet vs. Mitch and Noel not being physical enough or hedging well causing more switches and chasing blocks leading to fouls. There’s probably still a lot of noise there, but that’s the sort of stuff that you would expect a brilliant (so I’m told) defensive mind like Thibs (and the new guy I guess) to be coaching them up on, i.e. technique and decision-making. But they clearly can do some things on both ends (run the floor in transition, contain little guys in 1-on-1) that max-guys Gobert and Embiid can’t, and it doesn’t seem impossible that they can learn to do the things that they do well.

geo: as a kid one of my favorite “bad” movies was an old sci-fi flick called “Them”, basically some radioactive giant ants

Sci Fi/Horror films are an endless source of “so bad they’re good” movies. Corman… Hammer… and, of course, the king of ’em all, Ed Wood… are perhaps the best known perpetrators of cheesy, laughably awful horror flicks but they certainly have plenty of company. With low-budgets, poorly written scripts, lousy acting, and cheap production values being the rule rather than the exception, those are the go-to genres for anyone who’s looking for an easy laugh at the expense of a really crappy movie.

A few weeks back, in the pre-Halloween spate of horror films one of the local stations runs annually, I caught a little known gem entitled Horror Express. Released sometime in the early ’70s, it featured Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing (of course) But the picture was stolen by Telly Savalas, in which he shoe-horned many of his then-popular Kojak moves into his brief role as a Cossack officer. Add in a creature that’s supposed to be the missing link, a scenery-chewing Rasputin-like mad monk, as well as a wah-wah infused soundtrack that would not have sounded out of place in a porn movie, and you have all the makings of a bona fide classic. At one point, my wife wandered into the living room, spent a few minutes watching, and then asked “What in the hell is this?” My answer: “One of my new, all-time favorite movies!”

i agree the usual pnr data is all but worthless for obvious reasons. like if you look who did better defending against the pnr ball handler last year portis looks better than mitch and vucevic looks better than noel. but it’s meaningless.

mitch is obviously much quicker than embiid or gobert. mitch and anthony randolph were much quicker than tim duncan and jeff george was much better throwing 50 yards against his momentum than tom brady. gobert (and duncan) hedge almost every pnr and are both very disciplined at the rim and great at playing short court positional safety. mitch’s amazing ability to switch off the pnr and block james harden might be net very low value, bc however much better mitch is switching out on a lead guard it’s still probably a bad position for the defense on average, especially if he’s the only rim protector on the court and jumping at 3pt shooters. fortunately he toned this down a bit this last yr.

here are some unusual on/off stats. this is the on/off #s over the last two years for opponent shots per 100 taken at the rim + 3pt line (on average, higher quality shots) and opp FT per 100. one benefit to these is they are much less volatile/noise than +/- or rapm. this is not adjusted for the benefit mitch and noel get from coming off the bench:

rim or 3 per 100
mitch 72.9 on 71.6 off
noel 71.3 on 69.6 off
gobert 62.3 on 65.3 off
embiid 64.9 on 68.1 off

FTA/100
mitch 26.3 on 23.9 off
noel 23.4 on 21.0 off
gobert 20.3 on 25.3 off
embiid 22.9 on 25.7 off

ps i think both mitch and noel are plus defenders and i am very pro mitch!

For a man with four Ls in his name. Seems like a win though.

TheClashFan: Pepper, sorry for so long replying to this.My youngest brother (not the right wing conspiracy nut) gave me a bottle of The Dreaming Tree Crush red, 2016. It seems to cost in the $10-12 range.

I only drank about 2/3 of it…the rest for tonight’s dinner. It was fine; I’m not exactly a connoisseur, though.

no worries…neither am I…i did the same as you but drank about 75% of the bottle…squeeze a few more glasses out tonight with the leftovers…