The NBA has announced that it will start issuing fines for players that flop fouls. Various NBA personnel attending the games and watching video reviews will mark cases of potential flopping. Then the league will review the play(s) after the game to determine if indeed a flop took place. The keyword in the statement issued is that only clear cases of flopping would be fined.
This new rule change can help clean up the game. Floppers exist on both sides of the court, offense and defense. The players should be out there playing real defense, not just flailing their arms around hoping for a call. Some offensive players dribbling in the paint would sprawl over the floor, hoping for a call. That's not basketball.
Flopping is a term used to describe the actions of a player, falsely acting or claiming that a foul against the player had occurred. Soccer fans are accustomed to this tactic as flopping runs rampant in the game of soccer. Current big time floppers include Manu Ginobili, Anderson Varejao, Richard Hamilton, Fabricio Oberto, and Devin Harris.
The structure of the system has not been finalized, but the fine amounts will probably scale for repeat offenders. I hope they implement warnings and suspensions for excessive flopping, like they have for technical fouls.
I think this will be a great step in cleaning up the game. It will not stop flopping completely, as foul calls are the judgment of the referee staff. The referees will be pressured to call a foul if they did not see the entire play, but one of the players involved landed on the floor.
The issue at heart is that the NBA is a fast paced game with so many things happening at the same time. The referees can only see so much from their view points. One suggestion for improvement is to increase the number of referees in the game, but the league is already lacking top notch officiating crews, so it will be hard to increase the number of referees.
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