The new fines for flopping announced by the league are not very popular in Dallas.
First Mavericks owner Mark Cuban questioned the impact of the fines and what the fallout would be, and now Dirk Nowitzki has come out and questioned how the league will enforce the rules. From the Dallas Morning News (hat tip to SLAM):“I never looked at myself as a big flopper,’’ Nowitzki said Thursday after the Mavericks arrived in Germany for their preseason opener on Saturday. “If you play me physical then, obviously, I got to sell the call and get to the (free-throw) line. That’s just part of the game. We’ll have to see how they enforce that.
“I think it’s a bunch of crap to be honest with you. Are they going to come back after a game and fine you for flopping? That’s tough to do to me.’’
Nowitzki, like Blake Griffin before him, is hitting on the key here — how will this be enforced? Where are the lines going to be drawn? It’s easy to point out the obvious flops — Greivis Vasquez cannot run over Reggie Evans and send him flying — but most of what gets called by fans as a flop is a case where there is contact but then a player sells that for a foul.
Where do you want to draw that line? Is how a player falls after contact a true indication of how hard the contact was? Can you really judge that from video?
We will see where they draw the line. But know Nowitzki is not on board.