The NBA Will Vote On Giving Out Technicals For Flopping

The NBA will, once again, look to curb flopping by instituting new penalties for players that are found guilty of embellishing (or, more accurately, outright faking) contact to draw calls from officials.

After flopping fines came and went, the league will vote in a couple weeks on whether to try a new method: flopping technicals. According to Shams Charania, flopping T’s are one of two potential rules changes up for vote in July, along with giving coaches a second challenge for a successful first challenge — which would bring the NBA’s replay policy in line with most other sports.

The challenge rule is one that I would guess passes, as it will have a lot of support from coaches and teams, while only adding one potential extra stoppage. The flopping technical is a much trickier situation to figure out, because while a good idea in theory, it’s going to be incredibly hard to adjudicate in game.

Officials already have a hard time discerning flopping from fouls when making calls, especially because a lot of flops are coming after actual contact. If enacted, I would assume most of the technicals handed out will be done for egregious flops when a player completely fakes contact (and fails to get the intended call). We also don’t know if these will be reviewed (which adds another stoppage to the game) or just called on the floor by the officials, who will probably be wary of calling flopping T’s for anything borderline.

The league’s clear path rule has been a success, as the purposeful Euro-foul became nearly extinct last year by adding a free throw and possession. I have a hard time imagining flopping technicals would have the same efficacy, but I understand why they’d be willing to give them a trial run. I just can’t see a world where it works to get it out of the game simply because the players are so good at selling actual contact that officials won’t want to call a flopping T for an actual foul.