This season, the NBA is trying to come down hard on flopping by assessing in-game technical fouls to players who flop. However, in typical NBA fashion, it doesn’t seem to have any consistency at all.
Game after game, a player like Joel Embiid tests the limits on what can be called a flop. He bulldozes into his competitors only so he can completely barrel roll into the floor, without a flop getting called. In fact, he’s just rewarded with more and more free throws.
Last night, Steph Curry was shoved mid-air by the Portland Trail Blazers and he rolled on the floor to protect himself. Curry wasn’t looking for a call, didn’t complain to the refs, and immediately got back on defense. Yet for some reason, the NBA decided to give him a flopping technical foul on the play. The clip is down below.
It seems like the biggest problem with this rule is the same problem with the charge rule. It’s entirely objective to what the referee deems is a flop from his or her perspective. The call won’t be called the same every single time, and it already hasn’t been. It’s not like goaltending or a traveling call where 95% of the time it’ll be called the same.
Fortunately for the Warriors, they still defeated the Portland Trail Blazers, but if they had lost, the reactions to this moment wouldn’t have been so kind.
