Adam Silver Reveals NBA's Plans to Address Flopping Amid Criticism During Playoffs

Flopping continues to be a major storyline in the NBA with criticism directed toward some players as the postseason unfolds, and league commissioner Adam Silver revealed during a Monday interview on ESPN there are plans to review the situation in the summer. 

"When we put the flopping rule in place, there was, what I would call, egregious flopping," he said (5:10 mark). "Where there wasn't a foul being committed, the video would show the guy never even made contact, the guy was flying back like he came out of a rocket. Then there's players are taught to sell the call where there's actually a foul and they're trying to draw the officials' attention.

"We're going to look in the offseason. We have a two-day competition committee meeting in Vegas around the Summer League where we will watch over 1,000 plays over two days and see if we should set that line in a different place. But I think we have made a lot of progress there because there's a big difference."

The NBA already instituted new anti-tanking rules this offseason in an effort to address one of the issues with the league that has led to criticism. Further addressing the perceived flopping problem could be next in line during Summer League.

But it would not be the first time Silver and the league made strides in that area.

In July 2024, the NBA announced the implementation of an anti-flopping rule after it was used on a one-year trial basis during the 2023-24 campaign. The rule gives officials the ability to charge players with a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul if they determined there was an egregious enough flop for such a call.

Notably, the rule said players couldn't be ejected for two non-unsportsmanlike technical fouls like they were for two unsportsmanlike technical fouls.

Silver suggested flopping isn't as much of an issue as it was before such rules, but that hasn't stopped fans from criticizing players such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for perceived flopping.

Such criticism even led to Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti telling reporters Monday the star point guard is "playing against six people. He's got five defenders and the sixth defender is social media."

While Silver may not be able to stop that type of criticism from fans, it seems like the league will look at the flopping situation this summer.