The Sports Guy delivers an incredibly well written column taking the NBA to task for their handling of physical altercations and what not. Among the more salient points he raises is a shot at "flopping" which had become an all too used tactic for defensive players to draw charge calls.
The single most disgusting NBA development of the past few years? The flopping. Slowly, regretfully, inexplicably, the sport is morphing into soccer -- as exemplified by Kirilenko's swan dive near the end of Tuesday's Jazz-Warriors game that fouled out Matt Barnes, or Kirk Hinrich's perfectly designed flopparoo to draw Chauncey Billups' fourth foul in Detroit Tuesday. I blame the influx of European players for this trend because flopping has always been an acceptable part of soccer; they grew up watching that crap and understood that it could work in basketball as well, especially if you have a group of largely incompetent referees calling the action. So it started a few years ago, it's gotten worse and worse, and now, it's affecting the overall competitiveness of these games.
I won't disagree with the assertion that flopping is an import from Europe but I would point out that you can also cast a withering eye towards Durham. Duke players are notorious for flopping in an effort to draw offensive fouls to the point Shane Battier is often called "Floppier" on UNC message boards. In fact this past NCAA Tournament I posted a video from YouTube showing Greg Paulus attempting draw a charge and falling down without actually drawing contact. The flop along with the "kick out on a three point shot/pull the defender on top of me" move are common parts of the Duke game(and the Boston College game for all intents and purposes...yes I am looking at you Jared Dudley.)
So while the influx of the "soccer" mentality is probably a good place to start when it comes to the prevalence of flopping, it would be a mistake to ignore the "contributions" of Duke in this area.