Flopping in the NBA is a tricky subject. A few years back, the league implemented a new “respect the game” initiative, one of the tenets being a supposed crackdown on blatant flopping, with a series of fines handed down to serial offenders. But anyone who watches the game regularly knows that some players still do their best to oversell the contact on a fairly regular basis.
It’s hard to eradicate something that had become so insidious over the years, as players grew increasingly savvy about how to toe that careful line between selling contact and putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. Gary Trent Jr., for instance, recently joined the latter ranks with his Hall-of-Fame-level flop against the Thunder, one that was the textbook definition of a fine-able offense.
On Tuesday, Jimmy Butler submitted his own entry into the cannon late in the fourth quarter against the Knicks, although the obvious meta-nature of this one puts it in a category of its own.
Jimmy Butler deserves an Oscar for trying to sell this flagrant foul. 😂
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) February 10, 2021
After the game, Butler told reporters that he was inspired by his close friend, and star of stage and screen, Mark Wahlberg. Via Yahoo Sports:
“I’ve studied Mark Wahlberg and how he acts so incredibly well,” Butler told reporters. “I’ve taken a few pointers.”
The pair have been close pals since his early days in Chicago, with Butler saying that Wahlberg was something of a mentor to him as his own career was starting to take flight. When it comes to work ethic, Butler and Wahlberg are certainly cut from similar cloth. But Butler’s acting chops probably still need a bit more refinement if he wants to more effectively convince the refs to give him the type of calls he’s searching for.
