Since reports surfaced last week that the NBA was set to fine players for flopping, many fans and observers, including me, have wondered exactly how the league would set about policing these actions. Those rules and standards would go a long way towards defining exactly what the NBA thinks of flopping and why they're concerned with regulating it.

On Wednesday, the NBA unveiled its definition of flopping and their fine structure in response to them. From the official press release:

"Flopping" will be defined as any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player. The primary factor in determining whether a player committed a flop is whether his physical reaction to contact with another player is inconsistent with what would reasonably be expected given the force or direction of the contact. Physical acts that constitute legitimate basketball plays (such as moving to a spot in order to draw an offensive foul) and minor physical reactions to contact will not be treated as flops. Any player who is determined to have committed a flop during the regular season will be subject to the following: Violation 1: Warning Violation 2: $5,000 fine Violation 3: $10,000 fine Violation 4: $15,000 fine Violation 5: $30,000 fine If a player violates the anti-flopping rule six times or more, he will be subject to discipline that is reasonable under the circumstances, including an increased fine and/or suspension.

There is much to analyze here, so let's start with the definition itself. As I noted on Tuesday, a flop can be defined narrowly (pretending contact exists where there was none) 0r quite broadly (any embellishment that emphasizes contact beyond a basic physical reaction). A strict interpretation of this definition suggests the NBA has gone with the latter approach. If the reaction is "inconsistent with what would reasonably be expected" then the play will be a flop. (Never mind that those expectations could differ among reasonable judges.) Based on the amount of times that NBA players embellish contact in a regular game, the NBA would be set to levy many fines over the course of this season.



[Adrian Wojnarowski: Players left defenseless against flopping fines]

However, the fine structure itself indicates that they won't be fining with much regularity. Six instances of embellishment is relatively few, especially for defenders like Shane Battier or offensive players like Manu Ginobili who fall to the ground and flail their arms while driving several times per game. So, unless the NBA wants to start handing out suspensions a month or two into the season, they likely won't be policing flops very often. As a point of comparison, the league already suspends players for one game on their 16th technical foul of the regular season (plus another game-long suspension for every two techs after that). Over the course of a season, only a handful of players will see that penalty. If the flopping rules punish a similar number of players, then there's no way that the NBA can crack down on flopping (again, defined broadly) without drastically changing the structure of competition.

The approach, then, is expansive in theory but likely limited in practice. On top of that, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that the NBA is unlikely to announce fines as they are handed out, instead posting a running tally of infractions. Anyone who wants to figure out the specific flops will have to reverse-engineer the totals and guess at which specific plays were deemed fine-worthy. (It's as yet unclear what that means for the players' appeals process.) So not only will fines be irregular — the NBA won't even announce them in an effort to shame floppers in public.

The difficulty here is in figuring what the NBA has to gain from this particular system. Henry Abbott of TrueHoop has smartly pointed out that the existence of these penalties will at least curb the embarrassment that flopping brings to the league, but it also won't embarrass particular floppers. So, in all likelihood, these flopping rules will help show that the NBA cares about the issue without really doing much to curb the practice. It's a public relations move, first and foremost.