Flopping

PARIS (George Eddy's International Show) - The NBA has put in new guidelines this season to combat flopping which consists essentially in giving the league office the possibility to watch film and sanction floppers after the fact with a progessive scale of fines.
 
This is similar to the way they have been progressively punishing players who accumulate flagrant or technical fouls throughout the regular season.
 
Since deciding in a split second whether a play was a block or charge is probably the toughest thing for referees to whistle, I feel that sorting out flops from charges will be no easier, creating a somewhat impossible mission for the NBA refs.

Judging flops after the fact poses the question of why don't they scrutinise ALL errors by the officials the same way. Of course this would be impossible and would create more problems than solutions so in general we will continue to accept that refs make mistakes and that in the course of a game they usually even out... except for flopping calls and injury-causing flagrant fouls.

Why set flopping apart? Because it's cheating say the decision-makers at the league office. The problem is, that for years now, referees would rarely call a charge UNLESS the defender fell down backwards to make sure everyone saw it.

Honestly, how many charges do you remember seeing being called when the defender DID NOT fall down? Not many! You often hear players and refs say" stand your ground and be a man and absorb the contact" but rarely is a whistle blown in this case.

Now to be honest and fair and avoid flopping the refs are going to have to make those calls while the fans will be screaming "let em play ref!".

I agree that players acting like they got shot by a bazooka after a small contact is a pain in the butt and cheating but I think it's going to be very complicated to apply fair judgement.

The cutting edge will be when a player excessively exagerates after a small bump with the sole objective of tricking a ref. I am not too favorable to the idea off adding even more situations where refs can use instant replay because what we have now already slows the games down considerably.
 
Seeking perfection in the tough business of refereeing is an almost impossible task. Going back to the block-charge dilemma, I feel that 90% of the time the foul is a block on the defender who arrives late or is still moving when the shooter leaves the ground and this is systematically confirmed with the slow motion replay afterwards.

If everyone accepted this fact then less defenders would try to draw iffy charges, less dangerous and ugly pileups would occur in the paint and the offence would be at a real advantage which would produce more high-scoring and spectacular games!

I feel that watching help defenders trying to block a shot is more exciting and less dangerous than watching defenders try to draw a charge.

A similarly complicated call that is omnipresent in the modern game is trying to decide whether there was a moving screen or whether the defender was trying to bulldoze through a well-set pick.

For me these are more fifty-fifty situations with equal amounts of guilt for both parties concerned so just imagine what would happen if the league decided to watch film and correct all THOSE complicated situations after the fact!

To put things simply, I am in favor of any rule changes that would speed up the games, reduce dangerous contact and injury producing situations and increase scoring. What do you think?

George Eddy

FIBA

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