This video has been in a few places recently (here, here and here), but I didn’t get a chance to actually watch it until yesterday and it’s nothing short of magical.

The vid features Red Auerbach in the 70’s with Bullets Wes Unseld, Mike Riordan, Elvin Hayes and Clem Haskins in old-school home and away Bullets unis, demonstrating the evils of flopping.

Boy, would he be disappointed in a few people right now.

In the video, an outraged Auerbach stages a flop and then states his case to the camera.

“Now remember, coaches today in high school, college and pro are teaching the players how to fall,” he says. “This is unreal! They’re teaching them how to fall! They’re teaching the defense how to fall. In this case he’s on the offense, they’re teaching him how to fall.”

The video also features Hall of Fame referee Mendy Rudolph with his thoughts on how to fix flopping.

“Here again was a great acting job by Clem Haskins,” he says. “Now, the contact between Mike and Clem was totally incidental, Red. And again, the officials on this play should ignore it totally to eliminate this kind of acting in our game. If they’re smart, again, to stop it and to stop it early in the ball game, they’ll call the blocking foul on this man right here and he’ll stop falling on the floor and picking up splinters on his backside.”

Auerbach finishes with a final plea.

“What are we gonna do about it? Let’s clean this thing up. Let’s not hurt the game.”

Forty years later, and it’s still a relevant question.