I do agree that the rules aren't black and white. Family members and agents getting jobs and perks in organizations is something that happens across the league. I don't think the NBA cares about a few family members on the payroll (if their salary is reasonable) or endorsement deals. They're more concerned about LBJ (or someone in his orbit) getting an extra $50 million dollars (to go by one estimate of his true value in his prime) to go to the Knicks from Dolan related companies.
On the Wade example I would be surprised if those car's were appearance fees for Wade showing up at the dealership. Which giving what famous people get for appearance fees and the nature of those business (car's at cost) probably aren't wildly off market value.
What makes the Kawhi thing interesting to me is how this really starts to cross the line.
With the friends/family on payroll, we're talking a few hundred thousand per year. With Wade's free cars, still only <$300k per year. (Personaly, I don't think it was an appearance fee, more of an attempt at advertising/publicity by the car dealership, of which $200k-$300k definitely seems like a fair price.) And I'm sure this happens all the time with every team across the league (
C's gifted Shaq a free RV, which they later
denied was from them, wink, wink). But in all these cases we're talking peanuts compared to NBA payroll, below minimum rookie salary. Against the rules sure, but nobody cares. Kind of like going 60mph in a 55.
But a luxury Toronto penthouse? Now we're talking several million dollars in extra, well publicized comp. Don't know if the actual unit in question has been publicized, are we talking $2m or $10m? (But that's CAD, so converting to USD it might only be worth $1.75m
) Either way, it kind of starts to get out of that "everybody does it, no big deal, just sweep this under the rug" and more into the "we need to nip this in the bud before it becomes a serious problem, and the league is getting too much negative publicity over this." This is closer to 75-80mph in a 55, might be time to step in and enforce the rules.
Will be interesting to see if the league steps in here or investigates if Kawhi actually re-signs and accepts. Seems more than fair market value for advertising/publicity compared to something like Wade's free cars.