The setup: Rasheed Wallace was called for his fifth technical of the season against the Raptors on Friday night. He blames Hedo Turkoglu for flopping.
“They’ve got to know that he’s a [darn] flopper. That’s all Turkododo do. Flopping shouldn’t get you nowhere. He acts like I shot him…That’s not basketball, man. That’s not defense. That’s garbage, what it is. I’m glad I don’t have too much of it left…Let the Golden Child [LeBron James] do that, or one of the NBA Without Border kids do that, it’s all fine and dandy.”
— Rasheed Wallace, via ESPN
A couple of things to note:
1) Wallace is obviously talking about foreign players when he refers to “NBA Without Border kids” — is that racist? When a foreign player talks about “urban” players in the same way, like Andrew Bogut did when he said that most NBA players “want bling bling all over themselves,” he’s labeled a racist. Granted, Wallace is talking about the game of basketball while Bogut was talking about off-the-court stuff, but still.
2) Flopping exists because the officials won’t blow the whistle unless the defender sells the call. If Shaq uproots his defender in the post, the ref won’t blow the whistle unless the defender falls down. It’s the same way in college and in high school. There has to be some negative effect on the defender and the best way to draw attention to this negative effect is to fall down. The only reasonable way the league can curb flopping is for the officials to reward defenders who stand their ground and not blow the whistle when guys exaggerate the hit.
3) Did Wallace really say “Turkododo”?
