NBA reportedly votes to add teeth to long-standing commitment anti-flop campaign.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, owners will vote on a proposal at their July 11 meeting that would grant opponents a technical free throw when a player is deemed to have failed. This follows a report from May that the league was considering implementing technical fouls for flops during Summer League. If approved, the new rule would be applied on an experimental basis.
Owners will also vote on whether to award a second coaching challenge if the first is successful, according to the report. This would mimic the NFL’s coach challenge system, which awards a third challenge only if a coach’s first two challenges are successful. It also imitates common sense. If a coach correctly identifies an offending official, then he should have the opportunity to defend his team against further transgressions.
But the proposed program for technologies against flops is the real eye-catcher here. Flopping has been a scourge of the game and a subject of anger for fans for almost as long as basketball has been on television. No neutral observer likes to see the course of a match change because of the shenanigans of a defender who is not doing his job otherwise. Even more, no one likes to see civil servants being fooled by such shenanigans.
THE the league defines a flop as “an attempt either to deceive the referees into calling undeserved fouls, or to deceive fans into believing that the referees missed a foul by exaggerating the effect of contact with an opposing player”. Here is a classic example of Joel Embiid in 2018.
If approved, the measure would be the NBA’s most advanced, but not first, effort to discourage underplay. Since 2012, the league has implemented an “anti-flop rule” this penalizes players financially long after the fact.
Flop determinations are currently made only in post-match video reviews. If a player is deemed to have flopped, they receive a warning before a system of escalating fines that starts with $5,000 for the second flop up to $30,000 for a fifth rule violation.
Implementation of the fine system is rare. By Spotracthe last player to be fined for failing in the regular season was Smart Marcus – in 2020. The new proposal would not only put a renewed emphasis on discouraging flopping, but would penalize violators and their teams in the game.
If approved, the proposal would bring the NBA into compliance with the NCAA And FIBA, both of which have rules implementing technical fouls in the event of a flop. In theory, this is a great idea: discourage the act by punishing the actors with impacts that could cost their team victory.
In practice, success requires proper enforcement by officials, which opens a whole other can of worms for a crew that already struggles to get calls properly billed/blocked. The proposed rule does not make the task any easier. This gives the opportunity to make more mistakes. Hence the proposed test base.
But the potential downsides shouldn’t discourage homeowners from making an effort to resolve a wicked problem. This worth the pain.
