[APG]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

I think it has to do with the fact that the flop is deliberately done with the purpose of deceiving the officials and is not attempting to play basketball. T's can be earned in an emotional response to a game situation.

The rules actually support a T in most rule sets (not sure about the NBA). If the officials would just call a few flops as T's, they would stop. But no one has the guts to do it. But, a lot of people here equivocate to no end about why they can't be sure it was a flop if there was some degree of contact. I can tell, even most fans can tell, it isn't hard. The real reason isn't that we can't tell (even though some will still stand by that) but it is that no one wants to be a pioneer in making the tough call.

I do think that's an element of it, but I don't think you have the NBA going this route if you don't have media people like Jeff Van Gundy ranting for 3-5 minutes (I even posted a clip on here when he did a bit back) during every telecast about the "flop" or if you don't have ESPN, numerous YouTube clips, Twitter, blogs, etc. pointing out/complaining about it. Of course an issue is a lot of lay persons don't comprehend that a player can exaggerate the actual amount of contact, and yet still was fouled.

It's obvious from the NBA that they don't want their officials issuing T's for a flops or it would have been done so already. And it's obvious at other high levels of basketball that their boss's don't want their officials making that call even if their rule sets make that call possible or you would see this called. And the high school level, it's just general frowned on...as you said, the "pioneer call." Other ways we've seen with dealing with this act is the ole "make it a block."