The NBA’s penalty for in-game flopping is here to stay.
The league announced on Tuesday that its Board of Governors penned two permanent changes to the rulebook ahead of the 2024-2025 season. One of the changes sees the in-game flopping penalty introduced on a trial basis for the 2023-2024 season become permanent.
In addition to the no-flopping tolerance, the board made slight switch-ups for tiebreakers during the mid-season tournament, now known as the NBA Cup.
Both of these updates were taken under consideration by the NBA Competition Committee, which consists of players, representatives from the National Basketball Players Association, coaches, governors, team basketball executives and referees.
NO MORE FLOPPING
The new flop rule works as follows: When a flop is called, the offending player is charged with a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul. This results in one free throw for the opposing team, who may choose any player on the court at the time of the call to take the shot.
As well, the referee could hold off on making the flopping call until after live play is stopped. This provides an opportunity to play on if the offensive team still has an immediate scoring chance. This means it is also possible that the officials could call both a foul and a flopping violation on the same play.
After the free throw, the team with actual or imminent possession at the time of the call will be awarded possession when play resumes.
NBA CUP
The NBA board also voted to remove overtime scoring from being calculated into tiebreakers for their in-season tournament.
Following last season’s inaugural NBA Cup, these changes will affect the second and third tiebreakers — point differential and total points, respectfully — which were used to decide what teams advanced past group play.
The Emirates NBA Cup for 2024-2025 is set to tip off on Nov. 12, with the championship to be played on Dec. 17.