The NBA tried shaming players into not flopping by releasing a video and publicly warning/fining them for the action. That had a modest impact — at best — on players embellishing contact and taking other steps to sell calls.
That has led the NBA competition committee to consider something more serious: Technical fouls for flops. So reports Shams Charania of The Athletic.
This will be greeted by a chorus of “halleluiah” from NBA fans.
It’s also smart of the league to try this out at the Summer League and, probably, the G-League before coming to the NBA level. There will be kinks to be worked out, particularly regarding video review.
However, the devil is in the details. What fans often want to see as a flop — the embellishment of minor contact — is something officials may be slow to penalize because it can be tough to say with certainty whether a play flopped vs. was just off balance when the contact happened. The league will set that bar very high. Also, no way a technical is being handed out for a flop without a video review, and the league would like fewer of those, not more. It’s not a panacea.
But it would still be welcome, if nothing else but as a deterrent.
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Report: NBA considering technical fouls for obvious flops originally appeared on NBCSports.com