The Orlando Magic may not be doing their reputation any good these days.
The NBA announced on Saturday that Magic guard Jalen Suggs has been assessed a postgame flopping fine of $2,000 for an incident in Friday’s NBA Cup game against the Brooklyn Nets. Suggs was playing some tight defense on Brooklyn’s Tyrese Martin in the third quarter and flailed dramatically when Martin attempted to clear some space.
Here is the video.
add suggs to the list of 'underrated flop artists' pic.twitter.com/346UMTTUXH
— outbreezy (@outbreezyWC) November 30, 2024
But wait, there’s more! The NBA also announced on Saturday that another Magic player, center Goga Bitadze, had also been hit with a $2,000 flopping fine stemming from an incident during Friday’s game against the Nets.
Bitadze’s episode occurred at another point in the third quarter when Orlando was on offense. He was running up the floor in transition and got nudged in the paint by Brooklyn’s Ben Simmons. Bitadze then thrashed around and ended up well out of bounds by the baseline in attempt to sell the contact. You can see that video here.
The poetic justice was that neither flop attempt worked — Suggs was the one who was called for a foul for his initial jostling of Martin, and no whistle was blown on the Bitadze-Simmons play. The Magic still went on to win by a 123-100 final though.
The NBA can go back and retroactively hand out flopping fines upon league review, which is exactly what happened here. Those fines have been a part of the game for many years now, but in-game penalties for flopping also debuted just last season (which have been given from time to time).
