Early Monday evening, to little fanfare, the NBA released clips on its website featuring the first two NBA players to be publicly chastised for flopping. And with Derek Fisher still looking for a gig and Manu Ginobili working his way back into flopping shape, the names won't exactly light up anyone's marquee any time soon.
It's Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donald Sloan, and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Jose Juan Barea. Hardly top shelf names, and adding to their anonymous turn is the fact that both infractions took place deep into a random Friday slate of games, both only televised locally or in the upper reaches of NBA's League Pass package. Here's the lowdown, from the Yahoo! Sports Minute:
Barea has some measure of notoriety. He bounced between the Mavs and the D-League for a while before evolving as an offensive threat and working as a key figure off the bench of the team's 2010-11 championship squad. Now in Minnesota, he'll be asked to hold down the fort with Ricky Rubio still on the shelf, and as always (as a 5-9, maybe, lead guard) Barea has to try and get away with as much as he can while defending against taller opponents.
Sloan's story, to begin, isn't too far off — the 25 year old played with three teams last season as a rookie, and he's attempting to grow into a role as star Kyrie Irving's reserve in a role that could define his career much in the same way that Barea's role behind Jason Kidd defined the most prominent chunk of his career.
Also — both are bad actors. Terrible actors that the NBA made trivia answers out of even while slogging through a 12-game Friday night during the heart of football season and taking notes about the worst thespian performances of the nights. Well done, league. The game is forever clean.