Comments on NBA Flops: Stop the disease

Stank-0 would like to throw out Baron Davis' horri...

2008-05-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

Stank-0 would like to throw out Baron Davis' horrible flop against Mehmet Okur. http://youtube.com/watch?v=MTdERYOtqsg&feature=related

Various others
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8BjhfwVY_p8&feature=related

Your seeing increase of flops b/c they're euro pla...

2008-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Your seeing increase of flops b/c they're euro players. They grew up on soccer which is nothing but flopping.

Chris - Hopefully that's something we can address ...

2008-04-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Chris -

Hopefully that's something we can address here: how much flopping has there been historically. Basically, it's addressing the cliche of "it was way better back in the day."

My hunch is that it's gotten qualitatively worse. It's one thing to flail your arms to help out a ref if you got hacked (that's been around for a while). It's another to essentially 'make up' contact and fall down, just fishing for a call because the refs are bad and will call fouls on what they didn't see. Both of them are bad, but somethings are worse than others.

One of the things Rodman would do was incite contact. He'd goad a player into banging with him in the post, and then he'd take a hit and fall down. So he'd fall down, but there was contact that 'caused' it. At least that's my memory; hopefully we can back an assertion like that up with video footage.

However, don't you think it's a bit of an indictme...

2008-04-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

However, don't you think it's a bit of an indictment of Ginobili that even a Spurs fan mentioned his flopping without any provocation/mention from others?

It's more an indictment of predictable hoops-bloggers and commentors than anything else. If you stumble across somebody writing about flopping you know who they'll be talking about (Manu) and who they'll be actively ignoring (Laimbeer, Stockton and Malone, Rodman) in order to disregard historical precedent and somehow pin this on either the Spurs or European players. It's not like Jordan never ever ever oversold a charge in his life. It happened; we just didn't have YouTube and blogger to amplify it. Karl Malone didn't need the much-feared Soccer Influenced Foreigner to teach him how to flail his arms around when he barely got touched.

That being said, good for you guys for being fair w/r/t the Spurs and Suns. Pretty much every blog I've ever read on flopping essentially boils down to "My team just got eliminated by the Spurs, again, and I'm frustrated".

It's not just the Spurs doing it, but they bear th...

2008-04-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's not just the Spurs doing it, but they bear the greatest responsibility for this trend that is threatening to spoil an amazing postseason:

http://wisinsider.blogspot.com/2008/04/blame-spurs.html

We're going to try and keep some neutrality on thi...

2008-04-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

We're going to try and keep some neutrality on this site: we won't just go after Spurs.

That said, at this point the Suns and Spurs seem the worst offenders in the league.

But if you find some video with other teams/players flopping like fish, send it here, link it here, whatever. We'll catalog it and put it up, and it'll be around for all to see.

We're out to expose all flopping. Not just Spurs, not just scrubs. If KG flops, it'll be here. If Kobe flops, same. Equal opportunity. This is America.

As long as human beings are playing and human bein...

2008-04-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

As long as human beings are playing and human beings are officiating, you will never stop players trying to bend the rules to their advantage. The NBA doesn't need a flop rule. They already have one. Nowhere in the rules does it say that players are to be rewarded for flopping. Now if the officials want to make it a point of emphasis, that's a different story altogether. The whole flopping backlash smells of sour grapes.

Christian said, "every team flops and it's more th...

2008-04-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

Christian said, "every team flops and it's more than just Manu and Oberto doing it."

Yeah, like Tony Parker and Bruce Bowen. I will admit my bias by stating that I am a Suns fan. However, don't you think it's a bit of an indictment of Ginobili that even a Spurs fan mentioned his flopping without any provocation/mention from others? Manu is a great player, but I will NEVER respect his game and his talent when he flops so frequently and unabashedly. It's a slap to the face of basketball.

I'm a huge Spurs fan and I don't like flopping eit...

2008-04-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge Spurs fan and I don't like flopping either. A lot of fans will say the Spurs are the worst floppers in the league but I just want to remind everyone that every team flops and it's more than just Manu and Oberto doing it. I hope this exposes all the other floppers and it doesn't just take an anti-spurs position.

Henry Abbott at True Hoop posted this blog idea a ...

2008-04-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Henry Abbott at True Hoop posted this blog idea a couple days ago and I'm glad to see someone's taken him up on it. He noted, "Now that anti-flopper Shaquille O'Neal is a Sun, some in Phoenix think flopping is the worst thing ever. (If that means Raja Bell is going to be available this summer, I'll take him on my Blazers.) Here's what I would do if I were Shaquille O'Neal: give $100,000 or so to some blogger internet nerd types and start a killer website documenting each and every terrible flop with video. Then identify the referees involved and call them out. Write little feature articles which referees give floppers the most calls, and which players flop most egregiously. The mainstream media will fawn all over that site, and I can't promise flopping will stop, but I can promise it will go way down.

I'll be very interested to see if mainstream media would cite some stats if someone came up with a number for % of fouls garnered that are flops.