Perhaps one of the most distained, overanalyzed, and controversial plays in all of sports is the flop. The flop is when a player seemingly fakes falling, or being injured, or some other way that infers that an opponent made much more egregious contact with far greater impact than actually happened. This is most prevalent in soccer, especially elite soccer, where you’ll often see players writhing in pain on the pitch after what seemed like a hand slap. And why that seems to happen increasingly as a game gets closer to the end, when teams use every tactic for an advantage, particularly one that either earns you a foul kick or slows the momentum of your opponent.
Of course, soccer isn’t the only sport where players flop. Another of the most egregious is basketball, particularly the NBA, where flopping has become more widely used than the 15-foot jump shot. You’ll see it when a defensive player flies backwards like he was hit by a mac truck. You’ll see it when someone shooting a three-pointer turns from one of the most acrobatic athletes on the planet to something out of a Jerry Lewis movie. It drives fans insane, especially anyone who thinks their team got a bad call because someone on the other team got an easy call. And particularly at the end of close games, one big call either way can swing the outcome.
With that in mind, the NBA is going to try to do something about it. Or at least try something new, since they already have a rarely used, fairly ineffective anti-flopping rule on the books. Or at least try them when they don’t count, during summer league games played by largely rookies and guys who might not make the roster. That will come in the way of a new rule where referees can call a penalty on someone they decide is flopping on a play. That penalty with come with one free throw for the other team and possession of the ball. It will be a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul – which means it won’t count against the six fouls before you’re out of the game. So it’s somewhere between a slap on the wrist and an actual spanking. It won’t get someone kicked out, but it could make a difference late in the game. Whether it’s incentive enough to end the practice remains to be seen. And that, I suppose, is the goal of this trial.
Of course, that isn’t the only goal – to make sure players only fall when they’re actually hit. It’s also about stewardship of the game, making sure fans know the NBA cares about this crisis. Perhaps one of the key constructs of American professional sports is this fantasized notion of fairness. That somehow, the hardest working and most talented are rewarded for their efforts and integrity. It’s why we hate cheaters – but only when we confirm that they are actually cheating. Which is basically the history of baseball and steroids.
But it’s also worth considering flopping as more than simply an evasion of hard fast rules. Certainly in international soccer, flopping is far more accepted as part of the sporting ethos, strategic as much as illicit. So while you might scream at a player that flops during a game, true fans also understand appreciation for the effort, especially when it’s your team. If we are to believe that sport is a confluence of mental and physical skills, flopping seems to add an artistic sensibility to this hybrid. So if someone can figure out how to make something look like more than a foul than it actually was, maybe that’s a skill, not a crime.
And furthermore, overuse of the term flop is yet another disconnect between fans and athletes and perhaps, at the extreme, another commodification of their bodies. I know there’s a lot of faking in elite soccer. I also know they get beat up really bad during games, tripped at top speed and spiked with abandon. And when we establish flopping as a norm, we’re not giving credit to the fact that most of it really isn’t. Which leads to even more boorish fan behavior where athletes are more product than person.
Should they try to reduce flopping in the NBA? Maybe, or refs could just not call things that aren’t fouls. That, more than a heavy whistle, would keep players on their feet.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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