Want some free points? Nah, I'd rather make the highlight film.

For as long as I can remember, I've told every player, coach, and fan that high school coaches must do a better job of teaching kids how to shoot free throws. They nod politely and move away from me. At the next practice, I see kids working on fast breaks, three-pointers, and the muscle show. Each game, they'll leave 10, 12, 15 points on the floor as a pile of bricks.

Great coaches and players at all levels lose games for their teams because they will not work on free throws. According to most statistics, free-throw percentages improved in the last 50 years. In every sport, records have fallen in successive generations, but not here. A baseball equivalent might be the hitter who swings at each pitch outside the strike zone in the hope taking one yard. Rather than accepting a walk, the hitter strikes out or hits a weak grounder to second.

One coach, Cob  Carlson, profiled in today's Globe, has developed a program called Automatic Free Throws. Carlson would love to work with Rajon Rondo to help the Celtics' All-Star point guard improve his clang-worthy 59% free-throw percentage. (Ray Allen has a career 91%. Two former Celtics, Larry Bird and Bill Sharman, shot better than 88%.) So far, however, the Celtics have not responded to Carlson's offer to help, nor has any other NBA team.