The NBA is going to whistle flopping this season. I read it on Basket USA, my folder open on the kitchen table, the four-colour pen next to it.
Monty McCutchen, the league’s vice-president in charge of referee training, draws a distinction. There is exaggerating contact, which is tolerated. And there is flopping. The border is secondary, theatrical or exaggerated movements. In 2023 he called it STEM. Four letters. I haven’t got a column for four letters.
He said this: “Exaggerating contact is saying: ‘Hey, I think an illegal action just happened and I’m trying to draw your attention to it.’” At our place, getting the table’s attention means a raised hand, toward me, during a dead ball. Nobody falls over for it. I watch anyway.
In the preseason, at Madison Square Garden, the referees judged that Jalen Brunson had overplayed the effects of a shove from Rudy Gobert under the basket. Technical foul. He protested. The referees whistle, I note. The protest goes in no box.
The figure that interests me: according to the NBA, four cases of flopping upheld after video review, over the whole 2025/26 season. To be kept apart from the technicals whistled during games. So there is what’s whistled on the court, and what’s upheld later, in front of screens. Two sheets for one game. At our place, the sheet is signed by both captains, and after that nobody goes back to it.
Chris Finch, the Wolves coach, finds the solution simple: “all you have to do is stop rewarding actions that have nothing to do with basketball”. James Jones, at the league office, is convinced the players will adapt.
Theatrical is banned? Then I’ve been outside the rules since 2019.
I’m not against it. I just want to know how you write “theatrical” on a tablet. Technical foul, column B, secondary movement: it’s on the sheet.
It’s true, we checked: Basket USA.
