Earlier today, I watched my favorite soccer team, West Bromwich Albion F.C., suffer a heartbreaking loss to defending Premier League champs Manchester City in a game that featured some very questionable officiating, made more questionable by the idea that players might have been diving.
One of the non-calls could have given West Brom a penalty shot in the closing minutes. So maybe I’m a little more happy than I should be that the NBA is cracking down on flopping.
We’ve got some news about that (which includes the amazing phrase “flop czars”), plus all the latest from around the NBA, including injury reports on a couple big stars, after the jump.
First, though, make sure you’re up to date with everything else we’ve got going on here at Sheridan Hoops, starting with Harrison Sanford’s column on Jeremy Lin moving to Houston. Also, Jeff Nichols’ final installment of our fantasy primer is up, so go check that out if you’ve ever thought you could give fantasy hoops a shot, but just don’t know what you’re doing.
- Zach Lowe of Grantland informs us that the NBA is taking this flopping thing seriously, even in preseason games: “A league source tells Grantland the NBA flop czars have already warned “about 10” players for preseason floppage, though the league won’t publicly release their names. (That will change once the season starts and the shaming begins.) But it’s clear already the league is taking this seriously, and an aggressive early push wouldn’t be a surprise.”
- Dirk Nowitzki will miss the season opener, which is really bad news for the fans, but fortunately he won’t be out for long, and the injury was something that could have hampered his performance on the court. Brad Townsend and Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News have the story on how Dirk’s surgery went. “Nowitzki, an 11-time All-Star forward, underwent arthroscopic surgery to relieve a
constant buildup of fluid on the right knee. Nowitzki had hoped to avoid surgery until after the season, but he had been unable to play in the last three pre-season games because of the condition.