Thank the Lord for people like Barkley who are both honest enough to explain the situation and realistic enough to keep it ¹⁰⁄₁₀.

It’s the same thing with officiating in general. People think this stuff is new because we are increasingly exposed to every tiny thing that somebody can possibly complain about through social media. It has never been easier for one questionable call to be seen by thousands of people.

Just 20 years ago, we used to see our local games and a couple of national games, while getting the rest of the league through Sports Center highlights. Now we see /u/stepsisfucker69 post highlights every time a guy he doesn’t like sells a foul, seconds after it happens.

Edit: Of course that’s a real username, I probably should have gone weirder with that one

Edit2: Wow that ended up being pretty terrible so I threw a 69 on the end, which is also somehow a real username but less awful

I love Charles he’s honest 

I mean. He is right. Jordan was an immense flopper. Its just smart gameplay.

Vlade Divac was drafted in 89 I believe…Chuck is right again

Is Chuck dumb? Doesn’t he know OKC and SGA invented flopping? The NBA specifically told them to do it so they can win championships and be the face of the league.

Only people who think the 80s and 90s were full of stand up athletes who played ethically are young ass people who never saw a lick of it live and BOTS.

r/Lakers didn’t like that.

https://youtube.com/shorts/wJ4qigGBKtQ

Initiating contact is not flopping, Chuck. It’s flailing after you initiate and/or flailing before contact is even made. Refs not learning the difference is being afraid to hammer guys for flopping is the real issue.

What bothers me … refs watch the tape. They see that players have completely fooled them. Yet, keep falling for it and giving the same players the benefit of the doubt.

Even if players do it, defend it, like it, flopping should be out of the game.

No one ever believes it’s real until Chuck says so. Crazy the gravity the man has.

R/nbatalk hated this

Internet discourse has ‘ruined’ the nba, not the actual gameplay of the nba. I’m exhausted being on here trying to parse through casuals to find actual talking points.

Flopping always has existed. The stuff they complain about with SGA was already done by Jordan, Kobe, and Wade. The stuff Jokic and Embiid are doing was already done by Vlade Divac. They were always trying to sell fouls

Difference from last eras in my opinion (admittedly, probably just remembering the old days more fondly) is that the contact exaggeration occurred at the rim. You see it way more often on jump shots now with the leg kicks or the arms flailing to the side. And I swear the drive into contact and the whiplash head backwards movement is new the past 10 years. Probably mostly the fact that the flopping is so over-the-top exaggerated now that draws extra attention to it.

In this thread: people pretend that always existed means has always been exactly the same as it is now

LeBron doesn’t flop as much as in his prime though. Maybe he’s trying to be a good influence on his son idk.

Jordan flopped a lot too

Paging Parker & Ginobli.

It’s such a non problem the entire league running PR against it

Barkley doesn’t know what he’s talking about it! I trust my average r/nba redditor more

Well it still sucks. I’m not pretending I know how to fix it. That’s for the million/billionaires who run the league to figure out.

What I am saying is that it’s lame, has gotten lamer, and I’m not really as engaged with the sport when it’s so prevalent. Rational explanations are great but being “correct” about the situation doesn’t solve it.

Saying “it’s always been there” is great and all, but then why does it feel different now? It’s not just one person saying it— from what I’ve seen even casual fans (from in-person conversations, not Reddit/online) around me are watching less.

Top brass can do whatever they want about it. I’m not even saying I expect the NBA to face unsustainably low viewership or anything. My point is that there is a large portion of basketball fans that simply want to see the guys who flop chronically have to change. It’s just not exciting

Didn’t the refs actively punish people for getting away with flops, if they saw it on the replay, by swallowing their whistles? I know it always happened, but I thought that was the biggest difference.

Barkley is correct. When there’s an opportunity to abuse and manipulate officiating from a player, they will take it. The officiating is the problem.

I love when the NBA tells you that the playoffs will have less calls and more physical play, because they’re essentially saying the rules don’t matter and trying to pay attention to them is nonsense. The rules should just be the rules. If you create a grey area on every single play then everyone will be pissed constantly.

Still, however, I maintain that the style of foul baiting, while consistent amongst all eras, is horrible for the growth of the game, and destructive as a spectator.

New or not, it’s less fun to watch

Far too many people build up a myth in their minds about the quality of basketball pre-2000s, acting like flopping never existed until recently. Honestly gets exhausting listening to oldheads and ppl who weren’t born yet rewrite history. Thankfully we have honest folks like Barkley to set it straight.

Just because there was plenty of flopping back then doesn’t mean the league shouldn’t do something about all the flopping today. Back then it was acceptable for a child to work in a factory and other hazardous occupations, now it’s unacceptable. Back then it was acceptable for to have cigarette commercials on television, now there are none. Flopping is bad for the product and the league need to do something about it.

It was a problem then, it’s a problem now, and it’s been a problem the whole time in between. Some of us have had this take for decades and never wavered. Fucking do something about it NBA.

Clyde Frazier has said several times that he wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame without the “bait the defender off a pump fake into a foul” move

I think the issue isn’t that flopping is new, it’s that defenses have been so handcuffed by the new rules that it feels like no one is able to even play anymore. Yes guys like Jordan initiated a lot of contact, and even got a lot of FTs, but on the other hand guys were allowed to play him snug on defense and if he got too over the top they’d just knock his block off without it being a 20 minute review for being a “flagrant.”

SGA’s actions wouldn’t be half as tiring if the other players could actually defend him and he didn’t get free points endlessly.

There is a pretty noticeable difference between the flopping now than the foul baiting that existed in the 80’s and 90’s. Guys werent dribbling while snapping their heads back and falling down all over the place from light contact.

Yep, I watched a Jazz vs. Bulls finals game at a sports bar the other day and Stockton was flopping like a fish.

History shows us that when there’s an opportunity to cheat or exploit to gain advantage, a lot of people will do it. Simple as that.

Oh, sure.

It was different standards for what did and didn’t constitute a foul, but guys have always pushed whatever the line happens to be.

This is a… generous era for offense. And like any other era people are pushing the limits of that, which results in some of the more objectionably poor stuff you see from guys.

Tbf Barkley also said Steph would break in the 90s with the physicality so even if their was flopping guys we’re getting pummeled in a way they aren’t today

It was always a problem but it’s become a bigger problem since. They had an opportunity to nip it in the bud and Stern gave out like 2 or 3 flopping fines. It was a complete joke

…are there stats to back this up? Like a comparison between fouls per game or something?

I think hand checking being taken away is what exacerbated things. Defense can’t hand check, but offense can drive into you, forearm you back a couple feet with the off arm, and step back jumper. I hate that.

He’s right in the sense that there has has always been flopping….just not right in how frequent it has become. Before it was something that was seen as something the European players did, ala Vlade Divac’s who is probably #1 flopper the league has ever seen.

Refs and the actual execution of the said flopping rule has only gotten worse in the last decade or so. But that’s my opinion as a fan of 30 years who has seen a lot of games.

Chuck looks like my grandmother with her wig cap on

He’s right, Charles Oakley used to do it and it always annoyed me back then. But players did anything to get an edge and that shouldn’t be a hot take, and I still don’t think it’s as bad as today’s era tbh. You’d rarely ever see players fall on the floor like they got shot and that’s in a more physical era. Certain players today do full on soccer flops and it’s embarrassing.

I hate that the “it’s not new” narrative has such a strong strangle hold on the league from changing how the game is played

Pro horrible officiating propaganda and this sub is eating it up 😭✌️

Remember that one start to the season when most flops where being called a tech? Man, those were some good times. God knows we have the tech for it.

Hope Silver grows his balls back and reimplements it. But that seems like a longshot.

Players and teams are going to use every tool at their disposal in order to secure wins, this includes flopping if it’s allowed and rewarded. The responsibility ultimately falls on the league and the referees to find a good solution. 

The total number of free throws has decreased since 2000

When a guy is banging you, you feel his body, the best move is to spin off them.

Just because it has been going on a long time doesn’t mean it’s good and we should do nothing.

Barkley’s right about flopping always being around. It’s just that today’s media and social platforms highlight it more than ever, making it seem like a bigger issue. Players have always been strategic about drawing fouls.

Personally - I try to focus on the games, not on the noise around them

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

There always were flippers - but either I didn’t notice that as a kid or stars flopped way less or even not at all. But o me it felt like guys like Jordan, Hakeem, Kobe etc. felt pride about playing tough and not being phased by defense.

Outside of guys in the second tier I think the first time I was really disappointed by a superstar flopping was LeBron.

Knocking a defender off balance isn’t flopping, come on Chuck.

He’s right but it’s has gotten progressively much worse that it’s become a problem now.

What does he know? He doesn’t have rings.

I get his point, but I’m not sure who decided that the appeal to tradition fallacy means people shouldn’t hate flopping in present day….

The internet made people not have an individual opinion because it’s easy to pile on nonsense that is factually wrong yet people do mental gymnastics to believe their reality is real.

People on REDDIT are trying to argue with Chuck, like what is the goal???

No one here is going to want to hear it