David Stern is determined to stop the floppers, even if it takes until the next morning.
The NBA commissioner believes too many players are deceiving referees into calling fouls by falling down, or flopping. So he and the league’s newly reformed competition committee met Monday for a discussion about how it can be prevented.
One option, Stern said, is a ”postgame analysis” in which a player could be penalized if it was determined he flopped. The league retroactively upgrades or downgrades flagrant fouls after review, and along those lines he said that perhaps a player could receive a message from New York saying: ”Greetings from the league office. You have been assigned flopper status.”
”No, I’m joking, but something like that,” Stern said. ”That sort of lets people know that it’s not enough to say ‘it’s all part of the game.”’
The committee is made up of coaches Doc Rivers of Boston, Rick Carlisle of Dallas and Lionel Hollins of Memphis; owners Dan Gilbert of Cleveland and Joe Lacob of Golden State, and general managers Bryan Colangelo of Toronto, Sam Presti of Oklahoma City, Mitch Kupchak of the Lakers and Kevin O’Connor of Utah.
— Reported by Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press
