The NBA flopping rule has been on the books since 2023. The league made it permanent in July 2024. According to independent tracking of NBA technical fouls, the whole league combined for about 26 flopping technicals in the rule’s first season. The only documented flopping fine in all of 2025-26 was Malik Monk, $2,000, back in December. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has hit the floor on shot attempts 22 times in four games against the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. He is getting a whistle on half of those falls.
Adam Silver went on the Pat McAfee Show and told the world the officiating is incredible.
What Did the NBA Flopping Rule Actually Promise?
The NBA Board of Governors approved the in-game flopping penalty in July 2023 and rolled it out as a one-year trial in 2023-24. When a referee catches a flop, the offending player gets a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul and the other team shoots one free throw. The NBA tested it in Summer League, said they liked it, and made it permanent in July 2024.
Fines do not work. The NBA had been fining players for flopping since 2012, starting at $5,000 for a second offense and climbing to $30,000 for a fifth. Flopping got worse every year for a decade. Thirty thousand dollars to a player on a max contract is a parking ticket and everybody knew it. A free throw awarded to the other team in a playoff game, that is something a player actually feels. The league built the right solution. Steve Kerr said it before the rule even passed: “It’s up to us as a league. Do we want to fix this?” The league said yes, and then spent three seasons proving no.
Why Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Falling So Much in the 2026 Playoffs?
SGA has fallen on shot attempts 22 times in four games against San Antonio, up from 11 times against Phoenix in round one and 13 times against the Lakers in round two. He gets a foul call on 50% of his falls in these playoffs. Jalen Brunson gets one on 20.8% of his. Donovan Mitchell gets one on 21.2%. James Harden, who turned this into a profession, gets one on 40.6%.
I am not here to roast SGA for this. He led the league with 540 free throws made in the regular season, and he got there by learning something every player in this league is apparently learning now. Tyrese Haliburton said today that this is being taught before players even get to the NBA, in player development, in pickup, that working on how to draw fouls is just part of the game at every level now. He is right. If falling on a midrange jumper generates a foul call half the time and you shoot 90% from the line, staying on your feet is the dumb play. That is not irrational. That is a rational response to a system the league built and refuses to regulate.
Kerr said it earlier this year plainly: “I don’t have a problem with Shai. I have a problem with the rules.” The Spurs fans who chanted flopper at him for two straight minutes in Game 3 have the right instinct and the wrong target. SGA is playing the game the league built. The people who built it are in the league office deciding not to fix it.
Did the NBA Flopping Rule Actually Stop Anything?
No. Independent tracking of flopping technicals shows the NBA called approximately 26 in the entire 2023-24 season. Enforcement cratered after the opening months. The league made the rule permanent in July 2024 anyway, and the only documented flopping fine in all of 2025-26 was Malik Monk, $2,000, December. Twenty-six flopping technicals in an 82-game season across 30 teams is less than one per team per year.
Twenty-six. That was the crackdown.
Frank Vogel complained about Lu Dort flopping during a game this year. The NBA reviewed it. Then they overturned the flopping technical that had already been correctly called on the floor. The referee caught the flop, whistled it under the rule that exists, and the league office gave the call back.
Underdog Fantasy built a promotional game around how often SGA hits the deck. They called it Unethical Hoops, modeled after Operation, where the objective is removing a basketball from SGA without making contact. A sports betting company is selling merchandise built around the premise that NBA officiating is a joke, and nobody in the league office is calling flopping technicals in these playoffs to prove them wrong.
What Is Adam Silver Actually Doing About the NBA Flopping Rule?
Silver appeared on the Pat McAfee Show this week and said the officiating is incredible. On flopping specifically, he said there is “a difference between selling a call, exaggeration, and a true flop.” He confirmed AI-assisted video review is coming for objective calls. He offered nothing on enforcing the rule that has been permanent since 2024. The thing Silver said keeps him up at night is tanking.
Tanking. Tanking keeps Adam Silver up at night.
Silver knows flopping is a problem. He passed the rule. Made it permanent. Got on the biggest sports show in the country and gave a very careful answer designed to sound like something while saying nothing. That is a commissioner who has done the math on what it costs to make his referees call a flopping technical on the two-time MVP in the Western Conference Finals, and decided that number is too high. Star players draw star-player calls. Everybody in the league knows it. Nobody whose paycheck depends on those stars is going to say it flat.
Jaylen Brown said after Boston got bounced this year: “Flopping has ruined our game.” Named Joel Embiid specifically. Nothing happened. Kerr has been saying it for years. Haliburton confirmed today it is being coached into players before they ever touch an NBA floor. Every kid in a pickup gym working on how to draw fouls right now is responding rationally to the system the league created and will not correct.
When the rule actually got called in the first months of 2023-24, it worked. Players adjusted. The behavior got flagged. The problem is you cannot change behavior with 26 calls across an entire season. You cannot change behavior with one documented fine in the first six months of 2025-26. You cannot change behavior by going on the McAfee show and saying the officiating is incredible while an entire arena chants flopper at your two-time MVP.
SGA is going to fall. He is going to get the whistle. He is going to go to the line and make 90% of his free throws, because that is what happens when a rule exists on paper and nowhere else.
The rule is permanent. The enforcement is not.
Twenty-six flopping technicals in a season is not a crackdown. It is a press release.
