You Love the NBA's Flopping Problem, Admit It

We speak of flopping in basketball and goony, leering clickbait in the same derogatory, spiteful tones. We all agree that it's all loathsome, shameless, odious, fool-trapping, cheating--an insulting chicanery perpetrated against the audience for just long enough to entrap a whistle or a page view. We all agree that we hate them, and that we're right to hate them. We're all full of shit, mostly.

Why do we pretend so hard to despise what in fact we truly, secretly love? Flops, like slideshows of wrestling kittens and ephemeral slapstick GIFs, are actually as entertaining--albeit in a trolling, wrestling-heel sort of way--as any of the many other more respectable entertainments of basketball. So let's be honest. Let's all say it aloud, together: "I love flopping."

I know you love flopping because I've seen the numbers. Every time an NBA player takes to his stage of imaginary hurt with enough comic gusto, we all tune in quite reliably. Charlotte Hornets rookie P.J. Hairston helped us all remember that with this doozy of a dance last week:

You can heap criticism on Hairston or his next-level flopper of a teammate Lance Stephenson, who literally slapped himself in the face to fool referees back in November…

…or you can simply give way to the underhanded pleasure of their delightfully subversive behavior. You can grouse like a grumpy coach, or drink from this bottomless spring of shameless moxie and admire those so shamelessly splashing around in it. It takes an especially confident type to try pulling off such a show in the margins of the game's rulebook, in front of so many people watching so closely. It's not easy. Only a true clown prince, a truly committed cynic and competitor--one able to understand and exploit even the sillier aspects of the game--can perform this embarrassing act convincingly. How would you feel about pretending to be gravity's helpless, graceless, careening little wisp of a victim, on a jumbotron? Do you want to win enough to flail around like one of those inflatable men whipping around outside a used-car dealership?

Hairston was fined $5,000 for his spill, and Stephenson has lost far more than that in salary as a result of his overall delirium on the court. For challenging the boundaries of his sport's competitive spirit so abrasively, the avant-garde basketball artist formerly known as "Born Ready" has been made the subject of more than enough Hawthorne-level public shaming episodes to have his entire career scan like something of a situationist prank. (To be sure, periodic reports that Stephenson is insufferable off the hardwood probably have the larger impact on his earning power, but the constant bonanza of extra-basketball activity on the screen is a factor, too.)

In the case of more subtle floppery, however, we're less prepared to shame NBA players in the same way. Chris Paul has made the act of lying with his body into another component part of his signature ruthless pursuit of winning, and as such he avoids the scorn and mockery that lands on a weirdo like Stephenson or a rando like Hairston, despite the fact that Paul commits equally flagrant farces on the regular:

While CP3 is not entirely immune to criticism for these acts, or for other things (see: Ringz), his manipulation is easily embedded, by most, into his broader militaristic court mythos. Paul, the story goes, is the underdog fighter juking every inch of the game so he can to help his team win. He flops like a helpless fish not in the silly, sordid way of Stephenson, but as an extension of his all-encompassing desire for conquest.

We make exceptions for the players we love, all the time. In my hometown of Chicago, many Bulls-loving folks are still slow to admit that Michael Jordan was a scurrilous asshole behind the scenes of his 1990s triumphs, the ones we still measure every other roundball moment against. Chicago doesn't want to speak another obvious truth, either: Jordan's iconic, title-winning final shot as a Bull in Salt Lake City? That one was a pretty flagrant push-off on Bryon Russell. We print the legend, over and over again, because legends are fun like that.

When it comes to sports, our moral standards are agile, and the same behavior that's criminal from one perpetrator can be quickly forgiven in the name of another. Regionalism is just one of the many reasons for such biases. Daddy issues, bad love, and betting are others. But a more platonic, neutralized view of flopping, specifically, sees a hilarious, daring activity that compels us all. Enraged as it made me when it occurred, I'll always tip my hat to Chris Bosh for this balletic portrayal of pain:

Yes, it's bullshit, but look at that body control! From this scene, we can project Bosh for a future in elected politics; anyone who can fake that well, absorb a stadium full of hate, and still do his job effectively is definitely cut out for the moral challenges of state-making. Bosh's old teammate LeBron James, though, might not last in gubernatorial spheres. As the cringeworthy exemplar of a generation that's more self-aware about their media impression than any before them, James is all too eager to toss a wink into his own trickery:

The day-to-day dunce-making game these examples give us is, finally, fun. Maybe not the most responsible fun, maybe not fun we're proud to acknowledge, but part of the bigger joy that brings us back to watch every night.

Even if you're all rageful and zero-tolerance where flopping is concerned--because you care about fair principles and want sports to be a metaphor for life, or whatever else--your anger, in this case, is actually love, I promise. The clicks and the Vine loops and the general ambient heat of the conversation are, in this case, the phony tension of a romantic comedy before the leads stop bickering and finally fall in love. We like to talk about flopping, and we like to talk about it because--even as we disdain it--we need it. The debased, dishonest excess of the game shines and matters, too. Flopping is in our hearts; there are trace amounts of love buried in all those hate-clicks and fuming comments and righteous manual retweets. It all adds up.