Mark Cuban Will Fund NBA Flopping Study
By Josh Hill
Mark Cuban seems to be made of money, and he also seems to be wildly passionate about winning in the NBA. Put those two things together and you have the reason why the Dallas Mavericks owner is funding a study that will look into the flopping epidemic plaguing basketball today. According to ESPN and SMU’s official website, Cuban plans on giving $100,000 to Southern Methodist University for an 18-month study on flopping in the NBA.
Cuban wants the NBA to get scientific about flops, and according to SMU biomechanics expert Peter G. Weyand, that’s exactly what this study is going to try and do.
“The issues of collisional forces, balance and control in these types of athletic settings are largely uninvestigated,” Weyand said of what the study will focus on. “There has been a lot of research into balance and falls in the elderly, but relatively little on active adults and athletes.”
The announcement of the study comes days after NBA Commissioner David Stern said that fining players for flopping “isn’t enough” and that harsher penalties may be needed in the future to quell the issue.
“It isn’t enough, it isn’t enough,” Stern said of flopping, via ProBasketballTalk. “You’re not going to cause somebody to stop it for $5,000 when the average player’s salary is $5.5 million. And anyone who thought that was going to happen was allowing hope to prevail over reason.”
If the NBA is as serious about stopping player from flopping as they say they are, this study should go a long way in clearing up the haziest question of all — what defines a flop? After scientists get a crack at it, we should have a definitive answer and the NBA will continue to run out of excuses as to why flops are still a big part of the game today.