Ersan Ilyasova is one of the best charger-takers in the league. At least, he was with the Bucks. I’ve kind of lost track since then. But however good he was at setting his feet and letting people slam into him, he never crossed the fine line between that and flopping.
You can argue that taking charges IS flopping, by definition. You are free to talk about it at length if you want, just as I am free to not have to listen to your garbage reasoning. So there.
I would listen to an argument that Ilyasova’s second flop tonight, the one against Marc Gasol, was a good-faith effort to draw a charge. Fine. I can sort of buy that. But the first one, against Zach Randolph, is a flop worthy of the Andersons Varejao and Manus Ginobili of the world. World class floppage by a guy who made a name for himself absorbing contact, not fabricating it.
While editing this video, I found myself watching the flop over and over. And I got to thinking: would people watch a compilation of NBA flops? A “flopilation”? Would I have the temerity to create such a compilation? To do so, I would have to assign a rigorous definition to the word “flop”. Am I qualified for such a task? So many questions.