The Evolution Of Flopping In The NBA
Basketball is a game that seems to be ever changing, much like almost all of the major sports. Some changes are for the better, some for safety reasons, and certain changes just seem to be due to players/personnel getting naturally smarter, and using certain “ideas”, if you will, to their advantage. Key controversial examples of some of the major changes going on around the sports world are things like replay usage in the MLB, the strike down on pretty much any previously perceived good hit in the NFL, and of course, flopping in the NBA.
These all happen to be game-changing alterations to the sports we love, but flopping in the NBA seems to have had the biggest backlash out of all of these changes. The baseball replay usage seems to be somewhat accepted by the majority, maybe I don’t participate in enough heavy baseball conversation, and I’m sure this topic might be discussed much more in, lets say a local sports bar outside of Wrigley Field; but it isn’t something that you are constantly seeing discussed on a national level outside of a couple panel discussions when a certain play may have been severely affected by a replay rule. The NFL comes up next in line with the whole “lets basically turn this game into two hand touch” thing being discussed on a much more widespread level, but this seems to be kind of like a complaint that you might hear from your grandmother on the current state of today’s news, they don’t like how it’s being handled, yet they continue to watch it and seemingly enjoy every second of it. What I am getting at is that although many of these changes are drastic, they don’t seem to be pushing away fans of the game, they might create debate and discussion from time to time, but people generally accept that this is the way things are from now on… except when it comes to flopping in the NBA.
Having watched and played basketball my entire life, I will never abandon the sport because it happens to be one of the only things I love on this earth, just kidding, but in all honesty basketball is something I take very seriously, and a sport that I’m confident will never be replaced in my heart no matter what changes may come. That being said, I do know at least a handful of people who have gone from decent basketball fans, to completely abandoning the NBA as a whole due to this one little issue that just won’t seem to go away. Mind you, these certain “haters”, as they tend to be called, still participate in the viewing of NCAA basketball, but steer clear of the NBA as a whole. Flopping has become such an issue that it seems from November through June there is no way to escape the discussion. Many people believe it ruins the game, and takes away from the integrity of basketball, and before I continue let me say that I completely agree, to a point.
The evolution of flopping in professional basketball seems to be one of those changes that have come about due to the players getting a little smarter, and using their heads more than relying on sheer talent. Some flops are subtle, and somewhat believable, while some are simply egregious, and that really boils down to the fact that some people are simply smarter about when and where they decide to show off some of their acting skills. While flopping now comes in all different shapes and sizes, it hasn’t been around forever, so it had to start somewhere right?
I didn’t really get to start fully grasping the game of basketball until about age 10-12, so although I watched many NBA basketball games with my dad etc. in the 90s, I unfortunately didn’t really “get it” the way that I like to think I do now. Thanks now to YouTube, and NBA Hardwood Classics on ESPN, I get the opportunity to go back and watch previously played games, and highlights of the many great players that came before my time of understanding, and I actually spend a lot more of my time doing this than what most people consider “healthy”, but whatever, I didn’t ask them. What I’m getting at is that while watching those previous games and highlights it is easy to see that flopping wasn’t nearly as much of a problem in NBA until the turn of the century. Now, although there is no real way to pinpoint exactly when flopping became an NBA staple, a lot of it seemed to come about with the surge of international players that we have seen in recent years. I personally started noticing flopping with the San Antonio Spurs, and Manu Ginobili is known as somewhat of a pioneer of the flop, performing it masterfully throughout many junctures in his career. This is not to say that other people weren’t doing it before him, because I’m sure they were, but around his time is when other players really started catching on and realizing that they might be able to use this tactic to their advantage. Now days you catch all kinds of players flopping, ranging from superstars such as Lebron, D-Wade, and James Harden, all the way down to lower level guys such as Kendrick Perkins. The stars seem to do it more, because quite frankly, they seem to get away with it due to their status, but nonetheless the epidemic has spread throughout the NBA like the plague, and it is killing off a lot of NBA fans in the process.
The biggest problem seems to stem from guys like James Harden and Manu Ginobili who are what I like to call “volume floppers”, these guys figure that if they flop an enormous amount of times that it would be worth it even if only 15 % of them result in calls (James Harden has that number up to about 35 % it seems), because there is little to no repercussions for doing so which will be discussed later. I’ve had recent discussions where people ask, “well if this is true, then why doesn’t everyone just do this so called volume flopping now”, and the reason is quite simple, players like Harden and Ginobili can flop and usually still get off a quality shot while doing it, whether it be flaring your arms up and falling down after every attempted layup, or getting hacked by a defender that was 4 feet away from you after coming down from a jump shot, quality isn’t usually lost by these guys who have mastered the “volume flopping” aspect of their respective games. Lebron does this a lot to, so I don’t want anyone to think I’m giving him a pass, it just seems that Manu Ginobili and James Harden really use this volume flopping aspect to elevate their games to another level. This thought makes me somewhat suspicious of trusting the stats on these players. For example, Harden went to the line roughly 9 times per game last year, if 4 or 5 of those should have been non calls (which I obviously am just assuming due to the excess flopping) then doesn’t that make him of equal value to a 20-21 PPG guy before the flopping era? Obviously points are points, and the only thing that matters is that they go up on that scoreboard, but it’s just a question for thought. No matter the reason, these volume floppers seem to be what cause the most uproar among NBA fans, and although flopping seems like it is here to stay in professional basketball, limiting these excessive and routine flopping performances might help to reclaim some of these lost fans.
Punishment is what I hear as a solution to the problem from almost every person I talk to about the flopping epidemic, and on paper it seems like a great idea. The NBA has put into place a pathetic disciplinary standard when it comes to flopping. The first flop results in a warning, which is fine, but you are then allowed to flop 5 more times before the NBA even considers a suspension. Now, this rule might work if they actually called every flop that they saw, because people like Harden legitimately flop at least 3 times a game. The problem is that this rule only allows for minor fines (30k after your 5th flop) in NBA players eyes, and it is also only enforced when a flop is so egregious that they almost HAVE to enforce it without facing some sort of backlash. What the NBA doesn’t seem to realize is that many of the flops that get the calls are relatively subtle, but they can still affect the outcome of a game in the exact same way, and I know refs can’t see everything because of how fast paced the game is, but with 3 of them on the court they should be able to notice a lot more than 24 violations throughout a whole NBA season. You expect me to believe that in 1,230 regular season games (total number of combined games played) there were only 24 noticeable flops? That means there were only noticeable flops in barely 2 % of games, the day I believe that is the day I win MVP in an NBA All-Star game.
Eventually the rule will be re-written, but it will take something crazy happening like a flop ultimately deciding game 7 of the finals, or something along those lines. Basically what I’m saying is, get used to it because flopping as we know it will most likely be around for some time. As previously stated, I do believe it takes away from the integrity of the game, and watching the games from earlier times when there were “real” fouls, and people weren’t quite as good actors is a much better experience than some of today’s games, it doesn’t mean that we should give up on the sport as a whole. Flopping doesn’t take away from the Spurs putting together an amazing team performance year after year, it doesn’t take away Kevin Durant getting legitimately fouled and hitting a falling down three from the corner, and it most certainly doesn’t take away from game winning shots such as the one Damian Lillard hit to end his first round series this past year. Flopping may be less than favorable, but let’s not be so quick to turn our back on a game with so many other reasons worth watching, the amazing moments still far out-weigh the bad ones, and a little acting job by some of the players will never take away the beauty of this great game.
