The board of governors in the NBA is considering making the fine for tampering a $10M one. For those who don't know, tampering in the NBA is basically when a team talks to a player from a different team, and tries to do anything to convince them to go to their team. Like if the Pelicans bought Lebron a car and told him to go to the Pelicans, that would be tampering. (Lebron probably already has a car so that wouldn't happen of course, but it's just an example) Anyways, a memo was sent to the teams in the NBA with details of the proposed new fines. The other proposals being considered this offseason are:
1.) A requirement that a team report, within 24 hours, any instance of an agent or player representative asking for a benefit that is not allowed under the salary cap or collective bargaining agreement ("unauthorized benefits")
2.) A requirement that teams preserve communications with players and their agents for one year
3.) New channels for teams and team employees to anonymously report rules violations or tampering
4.) Prohibiting players from inducing players under contract to request trades
5.) A proposal to conduct investigatory audits of five randomly selected teams each year to assess compliance with system rules
From here on out, for every signed contract, the governors will have to provide proof that no contact was made to the player concerning playing for their team before the time of negotiating. "It's pointless, at the end of the day, to have rules that we can't enforce," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at the board of governors meeting in July.
While the fine may not be as high at $10M every time, it doubles the max for fines the NBA are allowed to put on teams and players. If a team makes an unauthorized contract, it can be fined up to $6M, and players can be fined up to $250,000.
Previously, if you said something destructive towards or about the NBA before any changes this year, you could've been fined up to $1M, but if this amendment is passed, the ceiling would be $5M. And a rule violation can now bring up to $10M in fines, up from the $2.5M.
Seeing as $1.4B was committed to in contracts in the first 90 minutes of legal negotiation, it was clear that there were talks concerning contracts before the allotted time to start. Previously, the NBA has been able to do little to none about tampering, but with these new fines and rules, hopefully there will now be fair play.
legend 💪🏼🔥