Flopping.

Yes, we hate it too.
And like most of you, we have our own special theory as to how to prevent it. However, unlike other people, who's suggestions include things like giving techs for flopping after the fact, our plan is much simpler, much more elegant, and would be relatively simple:

Our plan is to require all NBA referees to have a working understanding of high school physics.

Yeah, that may sound stupid at first, but lets examine what a flop actually is, what a referee is perceiving when they fall for a flop, and why their falling for said flop is bat**** insane.

Take the first flop in the following video:

In the first flop, Pau Gasol is standing just inside the foul lane at the moment of contact. When he flops, he lands with his feet about a foot away from the mid-point of the lane. That's a distance of roughly 5' traveled in 1 second of time.

Pau Gasol is listed at basketball-reference.com as weighing 227lbs. A basic knowledge of physics would lead us, then, to one of two conclusions.

Either Gasol flopped, or else Dwight Howard is secretly part rhinoceros.

You'll often hear the term "horsepower" when the pulling force of something, like a truck, is being described, but in truth, it has an actual mathematical definition: 1 horsepower is the amount of force required to move an object weighing 550 pounds at a rate of 1 foot per second. So lets take that Pau Gasol comparison again:

227 lbs at 5' in 1 second is the physical equivalent of 1135 lbs at 1' in 1 second.

What that means is that if Dwight Howard had actually shoulder bumped Pau Gasol so hard as to legitimately knock him that far backwards, Howard would've needed to hit him at a force of a little over 2 horsepower.

And given the basic understanding that Gasol probably wasn't hit with over 1000 lbs of force(since that much force on that small an area would like result in, at the very least, a few broken ribs and a collapsed lung), we can pretty safely assume that he flopped. Badly.

Now, we know what you're thinking: "Come on, guys. We've all been out running, had someone bump us, and helplessly gone flying way further than was justified by the bump."

Yes, we have. But that logic doesn't apply here. In that instance, your being bumped isn't what's causing you to go spiraling into the bushes at your high school track meet; your own momentum is. All the bump you received accomplished was redirecting your forward momentum towards a different direction, most likely a cream pie stand or two people inexplicably carrying a plate glass window. In Gasol's case, and indeed in the case of nearly all flops, the flopper was stationary. All potential force that would cause Gasol to fall and fly 5' would need to come either from Howard or from Gasol himself.

So there's the plan: basic physics courses for all NBA referees. If I could learn and understand this after two weeks of summer school at Dr. Phillips High School, I'm sure someone getting paid to officiate NBA games could handle it.

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