This has been the subject of much debate over the past 48 hours on Twitter among other basketball writers and fans. If you’re not familiar with the new rule, let’s explain it. The new rule states that if you are called for a flop, it is a Class B technical foul. This means that opponents get 1 shot. Class B technical fouls do not count against the players’ overall foul total, and it would take three flops from the same player to be ejected. Flops are obviously a matter of judgment, much like Block and Charge calls, but this rule has been a long time coming.
I love the rule, the flop has to find its way out of play. There are times when a player is hit hard and will go down, but the ones that need to be eliminated are when a player hits a three then falls or a player in the paint takes minimal contact then flies back. in the hope of causing a mistake. These are the ones they have to eliminate because they are the ones who are ridiculous and who will rarely cause a foul on the opponents.
As the season progressed, the referees judged this well and as expected. There will always be missed calls and it’s the same with the flop rule, but for the most part they were called as expected. This also seems to have stopped the flop. I’ve watched a lot of games already this year and it doesn’t seem like teams are called more than once per game. The new rule does its job to curb this behavior.
It remains to be seen whether this will completely stop being a failure, but it seems to be slowing it down a bit. Let’s revisit this one later in the season and see if the refs stop calling it so much and it’s going to cost a team a game at some point this season, especially late in games.
