Phony falls in basketball just got serious. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has teamed up with biomechanics experts at Southern Methodist University to study "flopping" -- when a player deliberately falls to deceive referees into thinking there's been a foul.
Flopping is considered a widespread problem in basketball. In 2012, the NBA began a system of escalating fines against NBA players suspected of flopping. In fact, the league implemented a special anti-flopping fine system for the current playoffs. (Watch out, Tim Duncan!) .
Right now, the first violation results in a $5,000 fine (check out the full breakdown at ). If a player violates the anti-flopping rule five times or more, "he will be subject to discipline that is reasonable under the circumstances, including an increased fine and/or suspension."
The problem is, it can be hard to tell whether a player is faking a fall or really got knocked off balance. That鈥檚 why Cuban has spent more than $100,000 to fund a research study at SMU in Dallas. Biomechanics expert , who leads the research team, says, 鈥淭here has been a lot of research into balance and falls in the elderly, but relatively little on active adults and athletes.鈥�
Researchers will look at how much force is required to cause a legitimate loss of balance and explore the possibility of estimating collision forces by video or other motion capture techniques.
The study was unveiled Friday, the morning after 92-88 in Game One of the NBA Finals.
After the announcement, Cuban tweeted: "Is it a flop? Let the scientists figure it out. im paying for the research to find out."
Here's a video of what sounds like your 8th grade science teacher highlighting flops from this past NBA season:
http://youtu.be/3I65Lqjh4fo
