NBA developing in-game penalty for flopping which would result in a technical free throw

Finally the NBA is catching up with the rest of the world’s basketball rule book, as the days of watching players exaggerate contact in orden to get a foul call might soon be over. It has been reported that the Competition Committee is discussing an in-game penalty for flopping that would result in a technical free throw.

According to insider Shams Charania, athletes will stop trying to manipulate the officials by trying to entice a whistle in their favor after this new rule is set in stone in the league. The reporter announces that a “trial is possible at Summer League in July.”

Flopping has been a problem in the NBA for years now, as players are constantly trying to trick the referees. At the beginning of the month, coach Steve Kerr begged the league to punish flops during their Western Conference semifinal series against the Los Angeles Lakers.

This wasn’t the first time that Kerr has pushed on the matter, as he’s suggested that the NBA should imitate how the rest of the world deals with these situations.

“I think, to me, what I’ve learned coaching in FIBA… There’s a flop rule,” Kerr told the press. “If a referee deems a player has flopped, they just call it a technical foul, and it’s pretty penalizing. And so the flopping has basically been eliminated from FIBA, and we have the ability to do the same thing in the NBA if we want.

“I think we should address it, because the players are so smart, and the entire regular season is about gamesmanship and trying to fool the refs. And this is how it’s been for a while, and it’s up to us as a league. Do we want to fix this?,” he kept at it.

“These are all things that are my personal plea to the NBA. I think we can do better in terms of cleaning up the flopping. In the meantime, I give the Lakers credit for the plays that they’ve been able to sell.”

Just as Kerr wanted, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) has imposed a flopping rule that results in a technical free throw, just what the NBA is developing.

Even though the league does have its set of punishments for flopping, none of them have an in-game consequence. Most of them require a postgame video review that eventually fines the players directly.

The Lakers had been under criticism lately for alledged flops throughout the playoffs

“We don’t teach flopping. We teach our players to play downhill and attack the paint and be forceful,” coach Darvin Ham said after numerous questioning from the press.

Take a look at what ESPN’s “Around the Horn” panel thinks of the NBA finally admitting they have a flor problem:

The all-time scoring leader in the league, LeBron James, has been one of the most criticized players this season. “I just know that we, our coaching staff and us players, we don’t work on flopping. That’s not even part of our game. Our game is to attack, attack the paint. We don’t mind physical contact, we actually like the contact, we don’t shy away from it,” he answered when his integrity was in question.

“We’re just not a team that goes out there looking for flopping opportunities. That’s just not us. It’s actually never been any team that I’ve played on in 20 years where we’ve been a flopping team,” he concluded.