FanPost

A Crisis in Flopping

Nowadays, there seems to be a movement to eliminate flopping in the NBA. Perhaps this is due to the advent of Youtube, where the most egregious flops can be replayed millions of times to get fans outraged about the perceived "softness" of the NBA. "This would not have happened back when Michael was around," they cry while ignoring how all-time greats like Bill Laimbeer, Reggie Miller, and Dennis Rodman flopped their way to championships and Hall of Fame inductions. Flopping has always been part of the NBA.

20120401_lbm_sj7_046_medium
Greg M. Cooper-US PRESSWIRE

However, there is a problem that is currently developing with flopping. Flopping has gotten outrageous. Outrageously… boring. Announcers like to joke how some of these floppers deserve Oscars. But they do not deserve Oscars. They don’t even deserve Razzies. They belong with other Z-list actors like Adam Sandler. Excluding the defenders who go down faster than Facebook stock in order to draw a charge, this is how pretty much every single flop in the NBA occurs:

1.) Player A hits (or almost hits) Player B.

2.) Player B goes down clutching either his face or his groin because those are the only two areas of the body which get hit in the game of basketball, and rolls around on the floor like he got shot.

3.) Referee calls a foul on Player A.

4.) Player B rolls around for a couple more minutes before getting up to shoot free throws, so the ref doesn’t feel bad for making the call.

5.) Meanwhile, Player A complains to the ref, eventually getting a technical foul.

Quite honestly, it’s boring. Where’s the flavor? Where’s the excitement? If you’re going to go down like a sack of rocks, make it enjoyable for the fans. You can’t keep doing what they did back in the 1980s. There are plenty of things that can be done to change it up.

First, referees should be mic’d up, and should be able to take off one free throw if the player manages to say something amusing. This would definitely lead to more entertaining banter between players and officials other than "f*** you, motherf******," which seems to be the generic phrase to say to officials these days.

Ref: I’m calling a foul on you.

Player: C’mon ref, he’s just holding his face because he doesn’t want anyone to see how ugly he is!

Flopper’s dad (from the stands): Hey, he’s my son!

Player: I know, I can tell.

Second, the NBA has to allow players to leave the bench area and surround the teammate who goes down. Think about how dramatic it would look on TV. Also, one of the players could sneak a marker out of his sock and draw a big bruise on the player’s face/groin area. Next thing you know, the flopper will be called a warrior for playing through injury.

Third, players have to stop rolling around like they got shot. Did they have some secret cabal meeting where every player agreed to do the exact same flop? What about having a team physician in full medical gear rush in with a defibrillator whenever a player goes down to the ground? In the Olympics, Rudy Fernandez got fouled by Ronny Turiaf and threw his own body in the air. After he fell, he grabbed his shoulder and acted as if Ronny had picked him up and slammed him to the ground. This was a flop deserving of an Oscar. Hollywood would be proud.

Now, I’m not saying that NBA players should join an acting troupe during the summer. But it couldn’t hurt to carry a few bags of fake blood under that jersey.

This is fan-created content on PoundingtheRock.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff at Pounding the Rock.