The flops must stop.
That’s the attitude of the NBA’s league office, which knows that the practice of players exaggerating contact isn’t very good for the game on the court — or its image off of it. So this season, the league is allowing referees to punish players during games for the flops it finds most egregious.
In particular, they’re looking for flops that qualify by having “Secondary, theatrical, or exaggerated movements” — STEM, for ease of reference for league watchers. In a meeting with NBA media last week, NBA head of referee development and training Monty McCutchen explained exactly which flops league officials are going to try to call this year.
In short, the league wants to catch the really obvious ones. When a player moves long after the contact or when a reaction is so obviously out of tune with the contact, it’s a play they hope NBA officials will call out this year.
On the other hand, some motions will not be deemed secondary, theatrical, or exaggerated. A player falling to the ground after taking a jump shot, even with no contact, won’t be considered a flop on its own — further twisting or flailing would be required, according to McCutchen. One set of keep-your-balance hand waves would be considered fine, while multiples might get a player in trouble.
The punishment is one non-unsportsmanlike technical foul. Any player on the opposing team will get to take one free throw. But because the technical foul is non-unsportsmanlike, flops won’t count towards a player’s limit of two before being ejected from a game.
To call a flop, referees signal by touching their right hand to their right shoulder, before moving the arm down outwardly to a horizontal position — just like the arm is flopping to the ground. But the whistle won’t be blown until there’s a stoppage of play, or a neutral opportunity to stop play. The hope is that it’ll be like when a referee decides to give a technical foul to a complaining player — they won’t stop a fast break to do so, but will wait until after the advantage has been completed. Then, they’ll go to the scorer’s table to signal the flop, which player it’s on, and give the other team their free throw.
Notably, flops can be called even if a foul occurred on any given play — if a player’s movement is secondary, theatrical, or exaggerated, the league wants a flop to be called even if illegal contact was indeed made. Selling a foul, though, isn’t necessarily a flop; the conduct has to be pretty egregious.
Coaches won’t be able to challenge flops directly. However, if referees end up at the video monitor as the result of a coach challenging a foul, they’ll be able to assess or revert flopping technicals there.
It’s not something NBA officials think will be a frequent call — a callable flop would have happened in only a small minority of games last season. But they think that the on-court penalty of potentially costing their team a point will reduce flopping league-wide, especially from its current most frequent practitioners.
Other rules changes, points of emphasis
The flopping rules headline the league’s rule changes this season, but other new items of note:
• If a coach’s first challenge of the game is deemed successful, the coach will get a second challenge to use this year. A coach must have a timeout at his disposal in order to call for a challenge. However, if the first challenge is successful, a coach earns his timeout back, a second successful challenge will not result in a returned timeout.
• The league wants to turn certain rip-through arm movements by offensive players from fouls into no-calls. In particular, if a player is using his arms to draw contact while moving to the middle of the court or its edges, referees will try to avoid blowing their whistle on the resulting contact this year. On the other hand, if the player is moving toward the basket and using a legitimate basketball move in shooting or dribbling, the foul will still be whistled.
• In the past, NBA officials have really avoided calling defensive 3-second technical fouls in the fourth quarter and in clutch situations — it’s probably the most common missed call on Last Two Minute reports. McCutchen wants the league’s refs to actually call those this year.
• The league wants to emphasize calling rim-hanging technical fouls this year. If a player hangs on the rim after a dunk, it’s not necessarily a problem — unless he hangs on the rim for an excessive period of time, shakes the rim while hanging on it, or pulls himself up in chin-up fashion on the rim. Then, the league wants referees to call technicals. Note, though, that these are also non-unsportsmanlike technical fouls, and cannot contribute to a player’s ejection from a game.
