The league gets serious about players who fake or exaggerate contacts
Critical plays may be reviewed twice if it is shown that there was an arbitral error in the first play.
The NBA announced Tuesday the approval of two new rules for the next season: the flopping technique, which is the action in which a player exaggerates or fakes a contact so that his defender is whistled for a free kick; and the second ‘challenge’ for a coach as long as he succeeds with his claim in the first.
NBA coaches have the right to a video review for controversial plays in which they disagree with the rulings of the referees. However, that ‘challenge’ was lost whether or not the revision for the team that was claiming was successful, which meant that many technicians did not ask for it until the last minutes so as not to waste that ace up their sleeve even in cases in which it was evident that the referees had been wrong. With the new rule, managers who get their first challenge right will be rewarded with a second in-match review chance.
On the other hand, the NBA approved its rule against ‘flopping’ by which the player penalized for faking or exaggerating a contact he will receive a technical foul and the other team will take a free throw. The flopping technique will not count for a possible expulsion of the penalized player.
Faking or exaggerating fouls has become a recurring controversy in the league. For example, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, accused the Los Angeles Lakers in the last playoffs of flopping in the West semifinal in which the purple and gold ones ended up winning.