
Low Down Dirty Shame
Rough up Steph Curry? It's good strategy in the NBA, but shouldn't the league be protecting players?
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Can somebody explain to me why this hack–a–stuff is fun to watch? @hoopidea
— Michael DeCicco (@mdecicco17) May 2, 2013
@hoopidea change the rule on the "hack-a-(insert player here)" strategy. This isn't fun ball for anyone to watch! Especially w/ 5+ min left!
— Daren Simmons (@DarenSimmons24) May 2, 2013

On video, it looks like strategy.

The NBA has set the league’s anti-flopping disciplinary schedule to be used during the 2013 Playoffs, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations Stu Jackson announced today.
“Flopping” is 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.
The NBA’s anti-flopping rule, adopted at the beginning of the 2012-13 season, had 24 violations during the 2012-13 regular season. Fourteen players received warnings while five players received a $5,000 fine for violating the anti-flopping rule twice.
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 are not deemed to be flops.
Any player who is determined to have committed a flop during the 2013 Playoffs will be subject to the following:
- Violation 1: $5,000 fine
- Violation 2: $10,000 fine
- Violation 3: $15,000 fine
- Violation 4: $30,000 fine
If a player violates the anti-flopping rule five times or more, he will be subject to discipline that is reasonable under the circumstances, including an increased fine and/or suspension.




At the latter end of the 1980s, word went around the NBA that the way to beat the Lakers was to beat them up, to "play them physically." Laker Coach Pat Riley resented it at the time and, when his team got beat in the Finals by a Detroit Pistons team employing the strategy, Riley remembered. After a year watching the NBA from the broadcast booth (and losing pop-a-shot competitions to Bob Costas), Riley came back to coach the New York Knicks in the 1991-1992 season. He came back determined to get vengeance.
Riley’s first season with the Knicks inspired a 12-game improvement in the team. Even more eye-catching to other coaches was what happened in the playoffs. The Knicks got nowhere close to beating the Bulls in 1991 in their first round series, losing 3-0. In 1992, under Riley’s changes (to be discussed), the Knicks beat the Pistons in the first round playing better bad-boy-ball than the Bad Boys themselves. They followed it up with a physical 7-game series loss to the eventual champion Bulls, battering the heroic Michael Jordan in the process.
Riley improved the Knicks through defense. He taught them to rotate quickly and he taught them to allow nothing easy. Riley saw the league getting more physical and he decided to push it. He espoused the infamous phrase, "No layups allowed." Numerically, the Knicks’ improvement from ’91 to ’92 was 1 point offensive and 3 points defensive; the Knicks’ offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) went from 105.4 to 106.4 and its defensive rating went from 105.6 to 102.3. They did it by fouling an extra 2 times per game and sending opponents to the line an extra 3 times per game. Their opponents shooting percentage went from 47.6% to 45.8%. Their opponents started taking more 3s because they were getting beat up or double-teamed down low. Riley figured that he wouldn’t get beat with jump shots.
And the league learned.
This decline could be the lack of mid-range jump shooters that we’ve heard about, but it appears to be the "No layups" rule. Recall back in the 1980s when teams would often have a guy like a Mark West or a Steve Johnson or a Buck Williams who just knew how to finish off after an offensive rebound. Remember when Dennis Rodman used to shoot nearly 60% doing the same thing. Then teams learned that he didn’t shoot foul shots very well and sent him to the line. Then he turned into a complete freak, but we digress. In the ‘91-92 season, Rodman shot 54% from the field, taking only 140 shots from the foul line. In the next season, Rodman shot 23 more foul shots (at 53%) in 1000 fewer minutes and his field goal percentage plummeted to 43%. Rodman was an extreme (there’s an understatement), but the league’s leading field goal percentage shooters showed a similar pattern.






#dangerousplay that should have been called. Period.
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 14, 2013

It’s fair to say that while this matter has been percolating in the union they haven’t been as proactive as they could be on a variety of what we used to call "b-list" issues, for player development, even discussions further with the NCAA about when players should be eligible. A wide variety of things.TrueHoop's Working Bodies series -- digging into issues of, essentially, player job safety -- is focused on many of those "social welfare" issues.
We’re looking for a partner that can really make life better for our players, would-be players, sort of the social welfare task of a union, together with growing the game so that everyone prospers.
And then at some future date we’ll argue about how to split up the sum of all of the growth we’ve worked on together. So we see it as a significant opportunity once it gets itself settled down.