Mark Cuban Unsure if Fining Floppers Will Work
Surprise, surprise, Mark Cuban disagrees with a new rule handed down by the league. Shortly after the league announced plans to start fining players who intentionally flop or feign contact in order to draw a foul, Cuban had this to say:
“If it just causes the refs to give floppers the benefit of the doubt knowing the league can deal with it after the fact, it could have some unintended consequences. A big question is going to be how much depth of explanation is going to be given when a fine is [assessed] and whether or not the league will enforce teams paying the fines for the players who get caught flopping. So if you see charges called because a guy lands on his ass, you know nothing has really changed. If the ‘look at me, I’m on the floor’ gets you nothing but a smirk, you know the rules are working.”
Cuban isn’t the only one who has an issue with the new NBA rules. The NBA Players Union announced that they plan to appeal the rule change since any rules that dole out fines need to be reviewed and approved by the Player’s Association. In a statement released earlier on Thursday, the NBAPA stated:
“Players’ union has issued a statement challenging the validity of the NBA’s new flopping policy: “The NBA is not allowed to unilaterally impose new economic discipline against the players without first bargaining with the union. We believe that any monetary penalty for an act of this type is inappropriate and without precedent in our sport or any other sport. We will bring appropriate legal action to challenge what is clearly a vague and arbitrary overreaction and overreach by the Commissioner’s office.”
While there is no doubt that something must be done about flopping in the league, it is vague at best, as to how the officials and the league will handle the situation. If the NBA isn’t careful, it will have a situation on it’s hands, similar to what the NFL did with the replacement refs in which the players and coaches had no idea what was a penalty and what wasn’t. From the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem like this new rule change and fine structure was thought through very carefully, especially if they missed something as basic as the need to run it by the NBAPA first. I don’t see this rule change holding up for very long, even if it gets approved.