Here's what an NBA technical foul for flopping looks like
The NBA is experimenting this summer with issuing technical fouls for flops.
It didn't take long for the first one to land either. Monday, the Golden State Warriors' Lester Quinones became the first player to get a technical for flopping. And on Wednesday, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Jaden Shackelford secured the honor of being the second player to collect a technical foul for flopping from an NBA official in summer league.
Here's what it looked like.
First in-game technical foul called for flopping 👀 pic.twitter.com/LyPum3cCeN
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 6, 2023
On Wednesday, Shackelford embellished contact in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies' Summer League squad in Salt Lake City. Or so the officials determined. With 4:49 remaining in the second quarter, Grizzlies forward Jake LaRavia made contact with Shackelford's head with his right arm on a drive to the basket. A moment after the contact, Shackelford recoiled and stumbled backward.
Dannica Mosher wasn't having it. The referee blew her whistle and called Shackelford for a technical foul. Jacob Gilyard then hit a technical free throw to extend the Memphis lead to 54-38.
Was it the right call? Replay appears to show that LaRavia made contact with Shackelford's face. Shackelford then appeared to attempt to sell the contact in an effort to get a call. That's the kind of behavior the NBA is trying to eliminate with its new flopping rule, which calls for in-game enforcement of flopping violations for the first time.
Shackelford, a second-year guard out of Alabama, signed an Exhibit 10 contract with Oklahoma City as an undrafted rookie last season. He played for the franchise's Oklahoma City Blue G League team and is currently on the Thunder's Summer League roster.
The NBA defines a flop as "an attempt to either fool referees into calling undeserved fouls or fool fans into thinking the referees missed a foul call by exaggerating the effect of contact with an opposing player." On Monday, Quinones was called for a flop in the fourth quarter. Unlike the call on Shackelford, which was made right away, the call on Quinones wasn't made until the next dead ball, so play continued before Quinones' actions were reviewed.
“I don’t know if Lester got fouled or not, but I know he sold it and it was a good sell,” Kings assistant coach Luke Loucks said via the Sacramento Bee. He's serving as Sacramento's summer league coach. “I thought he got fouled, but I was yelling at the top of my lungs, ‘Flop,’ right behind the ref. I didn’t think he heard me and I didn’t think he saw it, and I didn’t realize that you can go back and call it the flop rule at the next dead ball, which is what the ref did, so all these things with the rules, I think it’s a good time for the league to experiment."
“Whether I’m for it or against it, I don’t really have an opinion, but I do think it’s pretty cool in these situations, whether it be summer league or the G League, to experiment with any ways you can make the game better, and if this makes the game better, I’m all for it.”
Players were previously subject to a sparsely enforced escalating fine system for flops. Now they'll be issued technical fouls for violations. The system is being used on a trial basis in Summer League, and owners will reportedly vote on whether to implement it full-time during their July 11 meeting.
The call on Shackelford exact kind of call that demonstrates the difficulty with enforcement. By the league's definition of a flop, Shackelford appeared to indeed attempt to exaggerate "the effect of contact with an opposing player." At the same time, the contact looked legitimate, and if it was, officials missed it.
While the new rule admirably attempts to discourage flopping, it doesn't make officials any better at getting block/charge calls correct.
