The NBA is experimenting this summer with issuing technical fouls for flops.
It didn’t take long for the first one to land. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Jaden Shackelford has secured the honor of being the first player to ever collect a technical foul for flopping by an NBA official. At least it was in Summer League.
Shackelford, a second-year guard out of Alabama, signed an Exhibit 10 contract with Oklahoma City as an undrafted rookie last season. He played for the franchise’s Oklahoma City Blue G League team and is currently on the Thunder’s Summer League roster.
On Wednesday, he embellished contact in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies’ Summer League squad in Salt Lake City. Or so the officials determined. With 4:49 remaining in the second quarter, Grizzlies forward Jake LaRavia made contact with Shackelford’s head with his right arm on a drive to the basket. A moment after the contact, Shackelford recoiled and stumbled backward.
Dannica Mosher wasn’t having it. The referee blew her whistle and called Shackelford for a technical foul. Jacob Gilyard then hit a technical free throw to extend the Memphis lead to 54-38. But was it the right call?
Replay appears to show that LaRavia made contact with Shackelford’s face. Shackelford then appeared to attempt to sell the contact in an effort to get a call. That’s the kind of behavior the NBA is trying to eliminate with its new flopping rule, which calls for in-game enforcement of flopping violations for the first time.
The NBA defines a flop as “an attempt to either fool referees into calling undeserved fouls or fool fans into thinking the referees missed a foul call by exaggerating the effect of contact with an opposing player.”
Players were previously subject to a sparsely enforced escalating fine system for flops. Now they’ll be issued technical fouls for violations. The system’s being used on a trial basis in Summer League, and owners will reportedly vote on whether to implement it full-time during their July 11 meeting.
Wednesday’s technical on Shackelford is the exact kind of call to demonstrate the difficulty with enforcement. By the league’s definition of a flop, Shackelford appeared to indeed attempt to exaggerate “the effect of contact with an opposing player.” At the same time, the contact looked legitimate, and if it was, officials missed it.
While the new rule admirably attempts to discourage flopping, it doesn’t make officials any better at getting block/charge calls correct.