Flop or not: Does Shai Gilgeous-Alexander really fall more than his peers?

English may not be Victor Wembanyama’s first language, but he sure does pick his words carefully. Back in December, after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Cup semifinal, he spoke about how it felt to take down the champs.

“I’m just glad to be a part of something that’s growing to be so beautiful,” he said. “So pure and ethical basketball.”

The obvious inference that emerged from that press conference: their opponent that night, the Thunder, does not play pure and ethical basketball. 

As the two teams clash again in these Western Conference finals, Wembanyama’s words still carry weight. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been crowned the MVP for the second season in a row, but has struggled to shed the reputation that he hunts for foul calls as fans have been known to chant “free throw merchant” in opposing arenas. In March, fellow All-Star Jaylen Brown seemed to take a shot at Gilgeous-Alexander’s “foul-baiting,” though the Celtic didn’t refer to him by name.

Flopping has become a major talking point in the NBA, with Gilgeous-Alexander as a focal point. Late Wednesday night after the Thunder tied up the series, a video post on X generated over 17 million views with the caption, “Shai flopped on every single shot attempt.” 

The 36-second video showed seven plays in which the two-time MVP ended up on the floor after contact. Obviously, Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t take just seven shots in Wednesday’s win. The Clutch Player of the Year winner took 24 field-goal attempts en route to a game-high 30 points and shot just six free throws, lower than his regular-season average of nine. 

So did SGA really fall on every single shot attempt?

I watched the film of Gilgeous-Alexander’s field-goal attempts and plays in which he drew a shooting foul this postseason and charted how often he fell on the ground. I made no judgment about whether a foul call was justified or not. Nor did I weigh in whether it was a flop or not. Those are subjective opinions. Falling to the hardwood? That’s an objective measure.

I’ve long felt that the NBA should track falls officially on their player-tracking cameras and make that data publicly available. We have box outs, defender distances and shot designations about whether shots are “open” or “tightly contested.” Why not falls to the floor? 

Well, I took matters into my own hands. This week, I watched over 1,300 shots in this postseason from the game’s best scorers to get a better gauge on Gilgeous-Alexander’s propensity to fall on his shots. To focus on the remaining stars in the playoffs, I compared the Thunder star to New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, Cleveland Cavaliers guards James Harden and Donovan Mitchell, as well as Wembanyama.

With several hours of film watching in the books, how do the five stars stack up on falling down? 

Initially, I thought Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t fall more than his peers and said as much on Thursday’s Kevin O’Connor Show. But then I dug deeper.

Here’s what I found.

SGA falls most often on non-whistle shots

When I charted the shots of these five scorers, I made sure to separate the tally into two buckets: non-fouled shots and fouled shots. This way, I could better understand whether falls are being rewarded with whistles from officials or not. 

This postseason, on field-goal attempts that were not met with whistles, Gilgeous-Alexander fell on 20 of his 187 field-goal attempts, a rate of 10.7%.

Is that high? Low? 

Let’s compare that to Harden, who has similarly caught flak for his ability to get to the charity stripe. In this postseason, Harden has hit the deck on 19 of his 219 field-goal attempts, which translates to an 8.7% fall rate on non-fouled shots. That’s lower than SGA’s rate in the playoffs and in line with fellow scoring guards Brunson (7.9%) and Mitchell (7.6%). 

And what about the MVP third-place runner-up Wembanyama, the guy who has made not-so-veiled comments about purity and ethical basketball? 

Wembanyama has taken 164 non-fouled shots and only once did he fall to the ground. It came in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. He took a fadeaway baseline jumper on Naz Reid and tumbled to the floor. No call. That was the only one. Wembanyama’s 0.6% fall rate on non-foul field-goal attempts was by far the lowest rate among the group, about 18 times less common than his current opponent.

SGA also has the most falls on whistled shots

While the Thunder’s top scorer has seen his free throws tumble a bit in this series (7.5 per game), he has seen his overall free-throw totals slightly jump from 9.0 per game in the regular season to 9.8 per game in the playoffs. 

A lot of those trips to the charity stripe have been preceded by teammates helping him off the floor. In this postseason, he has gotten fouled on 37 shots, according to Sportradar tracking, and he has fallen on 19 of those attempts, meaning he has hit the hardwood on over half of his shooting fouls. If that seems like an extraordinarily high rate, that’s because it is — at least in this sample. 

For perspective, no other scorer among this small circle of peers has more than a 30% fall rate on their fouled shots. In fact, he has fallen more on his fouled shots (19 times) than Brunson, Mitchell and Wembanyama combined (17). 

That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s flopping his way to get those calls. It is certainly possible that his shiftiness, footwork and timing have thrown off defenders to such an extent that he’s getting trucked on those attempts or forcing defenders to shuffle under his landing zone. Social media and opposing team press conferences may see it differently.

So what does it look like when we put it all together and look at all shots, both fouled and non-fouled calls? 

SGA falls twice as often as his peers

When we combine the two data sets, we see that Gilgeous-Alexander leads the pack in fall rate on his shots. With a group-high 39 falls on his 224 tracked shots, Gilgeous-Alexander is hitting the deck on 17.4% of his overall attempts in his playoff run — nearly four times the rate of the tall enjoyer of “pure and ethical basketball,” Wembanyama.

Watching the film, it’s par for the course to see a downhill driver get knocked off balance at the rim and fall on the ground. But in Gilgeous-Alexander’s case, he seems to hit the deck more frequently in the midrange than his peers. For instance, on non-fouled shots, Gilgeous-Alexander fell in the midrange area five times, whereas Brunson has only fallen just once this postseason in the same area. (SGA does shoot more in the midrange, but not that much more.)

Again, this exercise is not meant to accuse Gilgeous-Alexander of flopping every time he falls to the mat. For his part, the NBA has not fined the two-time MVP for flopping. No player, actually, has been fined the $5,000 penalty this season. From the league’s official guide: 

“A ‘flop’ is an attempt to either fool referees into calling undeserved fouls or fool fans into thinking the referees missed a foul call by exaggerating the effect of contact with an opposing player. The main factor in determining whether a player committed a flop is whether his physical reaction to contact with another player is inconsistent with what would have been expected given the force or direction of the contact.”

Why does Gilgeous-Alexander fall so much compared to his peers? The simplest answer is that he gets fouled harder than anyone else. A cynical perspective would say he’s trying to dupe referees. A more interesting, though scientifically unproven, explanation is that he may be protecting his joints from harm. In 2019, sportswriter Chris Herring raised the possibility that habitual-faller Joel Embiid was taking a page out of martial arts by learning to fall in such a way that it distributes “the force of impact over the widest area possible to disperse the force of the fall.” Caitlin Cooper of Basketball, She Wrote also suggests the same for Pascal Siakam.

Whatever is happening, Gilgeous-Alexander is peeling himself off the floor more often these days. In Game 1 on Monday night, Gilgeous-Alexander fell six times on his shots, the most he had tallied in any game this playoff run. 

He wasn’t done. SGA topped that high mark in Game 2 on Wednesday night, falling a staggering nine times on his shots (including fouled attempts). That’s more than Wembanyama has fallen in this entire postseason on his shot attempts. Considering that Wembanyama has gotten a whistle nearly every time he has fallen (seven out of eight), maybe he should dive more often. Or not.

As we head into Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, Gilgeous-Alexander’s perceived flopping is undoubtedly a talking point. For those who complain about his propensity to hit the hardwood, though, he has a championship ring and two MVPs to fall back on.