During the fourth quarter of the Clippers win over the Hornets Sunday night, New Orleans guard Greivis Vasquez was briefly assessed a Flagrant II foul. The reason the foul was brief was that upon reviewing a replay, officials realized that Clippers forward Reggie Evans had put together a candidate for flop of the year. As you can see from the video above, Evans was barely nudged by Vasquez and he reacted as though he were James Harden after being leveled by a Ron Artest flying elbow.
After realizing they had been fooled, the officials retracted the Flagrant II and gave Vasquez a regular personal foul. As Ben Golliver of Eye on Basketball pointed out, the NBA needs to do something about this rule in the offseason. If referees can look at a replay and determine that a player has tricked them by acting, that player needs to be penalized for it. Whether it be a technical foul or a fine, the league can’t just let players flop around and draw calls that are later overturned without facing some type of consequence.
