The 2011-12 NBA season may have gotten off to a rocky start after an ugly NBA lockout that lasted much longer than anticipated, but the season has been considered a success with arguably the two best teams in the league going head-to-head in the NBA Finals with the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder battling it out for an NBA title.
Despite the success of the shortened NBA season, NBA Commissioner David Stern believes that tweaks need to be made in order to improve the league moving forward, with an emphasis on eliminating flopping via Jeff Latzke of Yahoo Sports:
”Flopping almost doesn’t do it justice,” Stern said Tuesday just prior to the start of the NBA Finals. ”Trickery. Deceit designed to cause the game to be decided other than on its merits. We’ll be looking at that.”
As arguably one of the biggest problem in the NBA today, flopping is definitely something that needs to be addressed in the off-season. It’ll be virtually impossible for the NBA will be able to completely eliminate flopping from the game entirely, but an attempt to police the tactic to force referees to blow their whistles will certainly be a step in the right direction.
Stern also wants to address veteran players competing in the Olympics for Team USA. Apparently, Stern believes that no player over 23 years-old should compete overseas. There are a few NBA owners like Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks that agrees with Stern on this issue, but it is uncertain whether or not a rule change will be made to keep veteran superstars out of international competition.