NBA Fines Atlanta Hawks, Two Other Teams for Tampering With Players
By Josh Hill
The NBA likes to keep their offseason dealing fair and square — as hard as that is to believe given the back-to-back trades of Chris Paul and Dwight Howard to Los Angeles teams. But when it comes to tampering with free agents, the NBA puts their foot down and says that they’ll be having none of that. That’s exactly what they said to three teams including the Atlanta Hawks on Monday as USA Today’s Sam Amick reports three teams have been fined by the NBA for tampering with free agents.
Three teams have been fined for tampering, according to an internal league memo obtained by @USATODAYsports. Atlanta is one.Story to come...
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) June 10, 2013
Atlanta was fined for sending out a memo to season ticket holders exclaiming that the chances of the team signing both Dwight Howard and Chris Paul is “realistic”, which is something the NBA wasn’t too fond of the Hawks doing.
We’ve heard of tampering all over sports as NFL teams did it so regularly that it was built into the rules that some forms of tampering are legal within reason. But the NBA isn’t allowing teams to tamper with big name free agents in an attempt to pool talent — well unless you’re from Miami, Los Angeles or New York, then it’s just frowned upon.
The identity of the other two teams are not yet known but while the Hawks have been fingered for tampering, it won’t ultimately hurt or affect their pursuit of both Howard and Paul when free agency officially begins July 1st.