New Rule is not a Flop

Starting this season, the NBA will finally penalize flopping.  Surprisingly, this new rule wasn't met with universal praise and, quite frankly, I'm dumbfounded by that.  Jalen Rose tweeted, "I appreciate rules against 'FLOPPING' but dislike the new penalties. Any punishment should happen DURING the game(personal/tech foul)."  In his article on Grantland, Zach Lowe stated, "An in-game punishment would be ideal, especially in the rare case in which a blatant flop tricks the referee. It wouldn’t take long for a video-review official to make the call, and the victimized team would shoot a technical after a timeout, minimizing the interruption."

In-game punishments?  As Zach stated, the way for this to be done would be to review it.  People complain about the pace of sports already; I don't think reviewing more plays is going to help that.  How would this even be done fairly, without reviewing every flop?  Do we really want/expect the refs to review every flop?  The only thing worse then flopping would be flops leading to delays in the game.

Jalen also tweeted why he doesn't like the punishment: "You must get 16 technical fouls to pay $5k while the 2nd flop has the same fee attached? Don't like it."  I think that punishment is completely fair.  Here's why: technical fouls are incidental; flopping is not.  Technical fouls can happen in the heat of the moment.  Flopping is an intentional attempt to deceive the referees.  In fact, I even think that $5,000 dollars is low, for the type of flopping the refs should penalize.

Flops like these:

Flopping to exaggerate the contact of actual fouls is one thing.  The complete fabrication that a foul happened is what needs to be punished.  This may sound strict, but I think the flops in those videos should be punished with suspensions.  Why?  Because they NEVER need to happen.  Pretending like you were fouled, when you weren't, is a disgrace to the game.  The problem isn't the fines.  It's that the fines even need to exist in the first place.