While NBA commissioner David Stern has been vocal about the league's need to expand its anti-flopping rules, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is funding a study on the practice, according to ESPN. One of Cuban's companies has provided $100,000 to Southern Methodist University for an 18-month investigation of the forces involved in basketball collisions and try to figure out if video or other motion capture techniques can identify legitimate collisions and instances of flopping.
"The research findings could conceivably contribute to video reviews of flopping and the subsequent assignment of fines," SMU biomechanics expert Peter G. Weyand, who leads the research team, said in a statement.
Cuban tweeted: "Is it a flop? Let the scientists figure it out . im paying for the research to find out."
Stern said Thursday that stronger flopping penalties will be on the agenda when the NBA's competition committee meets next week in San Antonio. This season, the league instituted a system that retroactively fined players for flopping after video review.
Only five players were fined $5,000 in the regular season and seven more have been fined that amount in the postseason. Stern hinted at increasing the penalty for those found guilty of flopping.
"It isn't enough, it isn't enough," Stern said in his annual pre-NBA Finals news conference. "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."
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