NBA Needs to Chill Out with these Tampering Investigations
Recent news:
The NBA has begun an investigation into the New York Knicks for alleged tampering regarding free agent pickup Jalen Brunson, sources inform @YahooSports.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) August 1, 2022
ESPN Sources: The NBA has opened an investigation into the Philadelphia 76ers for possible tampering and early contact centered on franchise’s summer free agency class of James Harden, P.J. Tucker and Danuel House. Sixers have begun cooperating with league on probe. Story soon.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 29, 2022
These are always the biggest nothing burger stories of all time. Everybody in the NBA tampers. If you’re not tampering, you’re not trying. You want every edge you can get over the competition. You want to work ahead and do your due diligence on every single player out there. No doofus GM is sitting there saying “free agency has begun! now we can get started!”
If anything, at least the investigation the Knicks sort of squashes the “they hate the Process” narrative. If the Sixers were the only team being investigated year-in and year-out, then we’d be on to something, but you’ve got Brunson this year, you had the Kyle Lowry thing and Lonzo Ball thing, too. Paul George tampering resulted in a huge fine back in 2017. Draft picks have been taken away, fines have been levied, etc. The NBA could seriously do this more often than they already do, which suggests to me that a blanket rule change is in order.
Good paragraph here from Bryan Toporek at Liberty Ballers:
Even if the Sixers did tamper with (P.J.) Tucker and/or (Danuel) House, they certainly weren’t the only team to touch base with a free agent before June 30. Charania reported the Denver Nuggets reached an agreement with DeAndre Jordan right when free agency began (which remains hilarious, by the way). Are we to believe that the Nuggets reached out to Jordan’s agent, agreed to terms and leaked the news to Charania all within the first 60 seconds free agency? What about Malik Monk, whom Charania also reported was “finalizing a deal” with the Sacramento Kings at 6 p.m. on the dot?
Investigate the Nuggets! They tampered with DeAndre Jordan. Unfair advantage! Also, take a look at player-to-player tampering while you’re at it. Collect the phone records. Get the text message logs. Subpoena the agents. Put them in front of the January 6th commission!
Thick sarcasm there. These stories are always lame. It’s the era of player empowerment and everybody is looking for an edge. Change the rules instead of doing these half-hearted investigations. Investigate everybody or investigate nobody.