Dhe rule has existed for almost ten years. But it is rarely used. Because to do this, someone in the NBA office in New York has to do the job of looking through video recordings of short game scenes and analyzing what is happening from as many camera angles as possible. But in February it happened again.
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Since the league issued two warnings against members of the team after an encounter between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies. America’s most prominent basketball player, LeBron James, and Kyle Kuzma were fined $ 5,000 each. After an extensive study of the moving images, they were found guilty of deceiving the referees and luring them to whistle when they dropped in the fight for the ball for no reason.
The offense is called “flopping” in the language of American sports and is the equivalent of a swallow in football. A flop may have a significantly smaller impact on the outcome of a game in which the countless attacks on the opponent’s basket add up to an end result of often more than a hundred points than a tortured penalty.
Violation of the sporting spirit
Nevertheless, the NBA dealt with the problem ten years ago and published its own catalog of penalties. For repeat offenders, the fines increase gradually from $ 5,000 to $ 50,000 after each wrongdoing. Anyone who is caught six times within a season must expect a ban, which leads to a proportionate salary deduction.
The aversion among American fans to theatrically simulating fouls is nothing new. The behavior violates the spirit of sport that emerged more than a hundred years ago at the country’s elite universities, that difficult-to-define category of honesty, character and respect for the rules and for the opponent. The fact that the inoculated cultural reservation has survived for so long may seem surprising in view of the conditions in international football, the most popular team sport in the world, in the art of acting and the skillful execution of hidden fouls.
In the United States, however, this violates two moral principles: Flopping (usually called diving in football) is an attempt at cheating and at the same time a demonstration of physical weakness as well as self-pity and self-indignity. Real winners don’t need that. That’s the theory. In practice, however, it looks different. “Flops have been around for a long time,” says Ronnie Nunn, who used to be confronted with such deceptive maneuvers as an NBA referee and had to decide spontaneously whether to punish the behavior with a technical foul or ignore it.
He remembers specialists like Dennis Rodman (“He was really good at holding the opponent’s wrist while jumping after the ball, but at the same time pretending to be fouled”) or Karl Malone (“He liked to act under the basket.” as if someone pushed him from behind ”). Today stars like LeBron James, Chris Paul (Phoenix Suns) or Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors) are notorious for their propensity to simulate.
Own cheat specialties
Which is why there are repeated attempts to analyze and contain the phenomenon. A company owned by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, funded a research group of biomechanics at Southern Methodist University in Texas seven years ago. It took a while before the study was finished. Among other things, she deals with the kinetic relationships that play a role in physical contact between players. It turned out that there are indicators to train referees so that they whistle off unsportsmanlike simulations on the spot: Can the intent already be identified? Yes, for example if the flopper acts too early or with a significant delay. How do floppers move their torso and arms? These are the parts of the body with which the alleged victims are demonstratively trying to sell the alleged foul.
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