The NBA officially adopted an anti-flopping policy Wednesday, announcing a new rule that will fine repeat offenders this season.
Any player who flops during a regular-season game will be subject to a series of penalties, beginning with a warning for first-time violators. After the warning, players will be fined in increments of $5,000 for each additional flop over the course of the season. The fines increase to $30,000 for a fifth offense.
The NBA stated it would consider suspending any player who violates the anti-flopping rule more than five times in the regular season. The league said it will announce at a later date a separate set of penalties for flopping during the postseason.
“Flops have no place in our game,” Stu Jackson, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations, said in a written statement. “They either fool referees into calling undeserved fouls or fool fans into thinking the referees missed a foul call.
“Accordingly, both the Board of Governors and the Competition Committee felt strongly that any player who the league determines, following video review, to have committed a flop should — after a warning — be given an automatic penalty.”
The league defined flopping as “any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player” in an official release.
–ESPN
