The 2025-26 season, with all its great highlights, has been dominated by an unappealing topic: flopping. Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown saw firsthand how annoying it can be when his Celtics team was eliminated by Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of these playoffs. He didn’t waste time calling it out for “ruining” the beautiful game.
Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, on the Haymaker Network with Ben and Skin podcast on Wednesday, joined critics of the act, but this time he went further, calling out the league for failing to implement an existing policy meant to combat it fully, with the current two-time MVP the most prominent “face” of the act.
“I went back and watched one of the games we played at OKC … and I was like, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander jumpers versus Mavs, 2024 playoffs. They had a highlight of Shai scoring 34 points. You know what was amazing about those 34 points? He didn’t fall down one time.” The host followed up directly: “Does the NBA have a flopping problem?” Cuban responded, saying, “100%.”
“There are two rules,” he added. “You can call flopping in a game and give somebody a tech, and you can fine somebody for flopping after the fact.”
He then recounted a moment from an owners’ meeting, “And Adam Silver just drops his head,” Cuban said. “They’re like, ‘No.’”
Since the NBA introduced its postgame flopping fine system in the 2012-13 season, the total number of publicly documented fines across the league stands at around 100-120 violations, which roughly estimates to seven to eight per season. Furthermore, the league expanded its flopping penalties ahead of the 2025-26 season, giving referees the ability to call violations live and allowing coaches to challenge those calls.
Despite those expanded rules, the only clearly documented flopping fine of the 2025-26 regular season was a $2,000 penalty issued to Malik Monk in December.
Interestingly, as of the end of the Western Conference Finals, the NBA had not issued a single flopping fine or in-game technical to Gilgeous-Alexander across the entire 2025-26 season, despite him becoming the most publicly scrutinized player in the league for the behavior in question.
Cuban: “I Just Don’t Think It Helps the Game When Guys Are Falling Down”
The argument that champions will do all it takes to win haunts SGA. The two-time MVP doesn’t care, such that when Spurs fans at Frost Bank Center chanted “flopper” at him throughout Games 3, 4 and 6 of the Western Conference Finals, his response:
“It does nothing. Doesn’t fuel me, doesn’t discourage me,” he said. “Nah, not really. I expect that from the opposing team. They’re not going to like me. They shouldn’t. I get it. It’s part of the game. I’ve been dealing with it a long time.”
ESPN’s Doris Burke previously referred to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as a “free throw merchant,” a description that pointed to the same pattern Cuban identified without naming it as flopping outright.
Burke said the broadcast team felt compelled to address the storyline because it had become impossible to ignore. Fans inside the arena were loudly chanting about it, and the audience watching at home could clearly hear it as well.
Defending the decision to discuss it on air, she pointed to the controversy surrounding Dwyane Wade’s free-throw advantage during the 2006 NBA Finals as a comparable example.
At the same time, Burke made it clear that the criticism wasn’t personal, emphasizing that she remains a big admirer of SGA and his game.
A clip from BrickCenter that accused Gilgeous-Alexander of “flopping on EVERY PLAY” went viral after the Thunder-Lakers Game 1. It pulled in millions of views and landed on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show as the series drew national attention.
The conversation has only intensified during the playoffs, where every whistle is scrutinized, and every possession is magnified.
Now, there’s data to fuel the debate.
Yahoo Sports analyst Tom Haberstroh reviewed more than 1,300 playoff shot attempts involving five of the NBA’s premier scorers and tracked a surprisingly simple metric: how often each player ended up on the floor.
The results were striking. Gilgeous-Alexander hit the hardwood at a significantly higher rate than his peers, including James Harden, a player whose name has long been synonymous with foul-drawing theatrics.
Of course, Gilgeous-Alexander is hardly the first superstar to build part of his offensive arsenal around manipulating contact.
For more than a decade, James Harden became the face of modern foul-drawing, mastering techniques that ranged from abrupt decelerations to arm hooks and shot motions designed to entice defenders into mistakes.
His approach was so effective that it prompted league-wide debates and eventually contributed to rule changes aimed at curbing “non-basketball moves.”
That context matters because it reframes the discussion. The question is no longer whether Gilgeous-Alexander draws contact – nearly every elite scorer does. From Harden’s foul-baiting peak in Houston to Brunson’s crafty footwork in the lane and Luka Doncic’s relentless pursuit of advantageous whistles, the NBA has long rewarded players who understand where officiating gray areas exist.
Conquerors of Shai and the Thunder, Spurs, for their part, have hardly claimed immunity from the same instincts.
Asked whether San Antonio left gamesmanship on the table by not leaning into contact the way OKC does, Stephon Castle said:
“I don’t really know how to answer that, because I sell calls too, I can’t lie.”
It was the kind of admission that reframed the entire debate as more of a league-wide condition that the rulebook has simply never been enforced to address.
The debate took a different turn when the Canadian’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist to the gambling platform Underdog Sports. The platform declined to back down, with a spokesperson saying they “like to have some fun with whatever is in the sports fan zeitgeist.”
Draymond Green stepped forward to push back on the criticism. The four-time Warriors champion argued that the narrative had gone too far, although he acknowledged that Gilgeous-Alexander’s behavior was “unpalatable for NBA purists.”
Silver’s response at that owners’ meeting, the dropped head, the admission that none of the examples shown had been fined, is the image Cuban chose to leave behind.
“I just don’t think it helps the game when guys are falling down at all,” Cuban said.
Few topics unite NBA fans in frustration quite like flopping and foul-baiting. Whether it’s a dramatic fall after minimal contact or a savvy veteran selling a whistle, the line between gamesmanship and deception has become one of the league’s most hotly debated issues.
As criticism continues to mount, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver finally weighed in during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show during the playoffs. Rather than condemning the practice outright, Silver offered a more nuanced perspective, arguing that much of what fans label as “flopping” is actually players doing what they’ve long been taught to do: sell contact and draw attention to fouls.
“It’s been a conversation. I would only say that there’s a difference between selling a call, exaggeration, and a true flop, which is where you’re actually fooling the referees.” Silver said.
“I think sometimes, even as I sit in the stands at games, players may be falling down, players may be reacting to a call. But then to me, if they’re not fooling the referees, it’s like, ‘Okay. That’s like, the players are taught to sell calls these days.’ I mean, can officiating get better? Of course, we’re always working on that. Can officials get fooled occasionally? We’re always looking that as well. But the officiating is incredible.”
While acknowledging that exaggeration exists and that officials can occasionally be fooled, Silver drew a distinction between embellishing contact and what he considers “true flopping”, successfully deceiving referees into making the wrong call.
With the Thunder eliminated by the Spurs in the WCF, there will be increased pressure on the NBA to clamp down on flopping ahead of next season.
The post “Adam Silver Just Drops His Head”: Mark Cuban Blames NBA Commissioner’s Inaction for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Others’ Flopping Habits appeared first on EssentiallySports.
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