The Clippers dominated the Nuggets on Saturday night with a 132-111 win at home to pull within 2.5 games of Denver at the top of the Western Conference standings.
After the game, Clippers center Marcin Gortat wasn’t pleased with his counterpart in Nikola Jokic and the way he sells contact in an effort to get calls. Gortat told reporters Jokic is too big and skilled to be flopping the way he does, via Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times.
“He’s the biggest flopper in the history of NBA,” Gortat said. “Not only in this year in the league — in the history of NBA. He’s the biggest flopper, 300-pound dude and flopping all the time. At the end of the day, he’s very skilled, he doesn’t have to flop every time, but that’s what’s happening. All of a sudden, he pushes me out of bounds and he complains about it? It is what it is. Fouls being called both ways.”
Jokic certainly sells contact, but I feel like there’s some significant hyperbole in this statement from Gortat considering Jokic is likely not the biggest flopper whether this is meant literally in terms of size or figuratively in terms of how often he flops.
Beyond that, for big guys, many learn to sell contact more because it’s often the way they can get calls when there is legitimate contact. When you play through contact and are stronger than an opponent, sometimes calls don’t go your way because it doesn’t look like you’re being fouled — see: All of Shaq’s career. Still, some do go above and beyond when trying to sell said contact — and selling things that aren’t actually fouls — and Gortat thinks Jokic crosses that line far too often.
