Heat and Bulls docked draft picks for Lowry and Lonzo

[Roy H.]

I have a hard time with penalizing teams when they work out a sign and trade with the player's current team.

I don't think the penalty is just about the 2 teams directly involved.  It's also about the other teams in the league that didn't get the opportunity to negotiate with the players because they were nominally playing by the rules versus actively flouting them.

Nobody plays by the rules though

Probably some do.  Teams complained to the league about these deals — presumably they were playing by the rules for these players.

The dumb thing is that the bucks got punished last year for a player that they didn’t even land. The cost? A second rounder. Then the league made a huge deal about it, indicated that penalties would be steep in the future, etc. The following season, two teams do cheat abd sign the guy they were targeting.  The cost? A second rounder.  Where’s the disincentive?

Arguably, the Bulls and Heat got punished less than the Bucks.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Feels disproportionate. I think the Heat were getting Lowry either way. That's not a big deal.

But the Bulls and Ball? Especially as a Celtic fan who thought Ball would open the offense up a bit, that hurt. Any leg up they got seems a bit unfair.

If the NBA determined that the advantage they gained was the difference in them getting the player, then surely a 2nd round pick isn't enough, not for players like Lowry and Ball.

[Celtics2021]

I have a hard time with penalizing teams when they work out a sign and trade with the player's current team.

I don't think the penalty is just about the 2 teams directly involved.  It's also about the other teams in the league that didn't get the opportunity to negotiate with the players because they were nominally playing by the rules versus actively flouting them.

Nobody plays by the rules though

Probably some do.  Teams complained to the league about these deals — presumably they were playing by the rules for these players.

The dumb thing is that the bucks got punished last year for a player that they didn’t even land. The cost? A second rounder. Then the league made a huge deal about it, indicated that penalties would be steep in the future, etc. The following season, two teams do cheat abd sign the guy they were targeting.  The cost? A second rounder.  Where’s the disincentive?

Arguably, the Bulls and Heat got punished less than the Bucks.

The details of the cases are obviously unknown.  The league said the Bulls and Heat cooperated — maybe the Bucks didn’t?  The Heat also released a statement disagreeing with the NBA’s conclusions — maybe their behavior was closer to the rules?  Also, to what degree should you base the penalties based on behavior or outcome?  If the Bucks blatantly thwarted rules, even though they didn’t get the player, while the Heat made a smaller mistake, even if they did get the player, who should get greater punishment?

[RJ87]

Feels disproportionate. I think the Heat were getting Lowry either way. That's not a big deal.

But the Bulls and Ball? Especially as a Celtic fan who thought Ball would open the offense up a bit, that hurt. Any leg up they got seems a bit unfair.

If the NBA determined that the advantage they gained was the difference in them getting the player, then surely a 2nd round pick isn't enough, not for players like Lowry and Ball.

Ball wanted to go to Chicago, though. I don't even think Boston was on his radar. And we weren't in a position to force the Pels to come to the table on a sign & trade because we didn't have cap to sign him outright.

Chicago could've created the cap space to sign Ball to an offer sheet. So the outcome would've been Bulls signed him outright and Pels dont match and lose him, or Pelicans match even though they knew Lonzo didn't want to be there.

My assumption is that since both players were acquired through sign & trade and Toronto and New Orleans received assets via trade, the league didn't think more stringent punishment was necessary.

[Roy H.]

I have a hard time with penalizing teams when they work out a sign and trade with the player's current team.

I don't think the penalty is just about the 2 teams directly involved.  It's also about the other teams in the league that didn't get the opportunity to negotiate with the players because they were nominally playing by the rules versus actively flouting them.

Nobody plays by the rules though

Probably some do.  Teams complained to the league about these deals — presumably they were playing by the rules for these players.

The dumb thing is that the bucks got punished last year for a player that they didn’t even land. The cost? A second rounder. Then the league made a huge deal about it, indicated that penalties would be steep in the future, etc. The following season, two teams do cheat abd sign the guy they were targeting.  The cost? A second rounder.  Where’s the disincentive?

Arguably, the Bulls and Heat got punished less than the Bucks.

The details of the cases are obviously unknown.  The league said the Bulls and Heat cooperated — maybe the Bucks didn’t?  The Heat also released a statement disagreeing with the NBA’s conclusions — maybe their behavior was closer to the rules?  Also, to what degree should you base the penalties based on behavior or outcome?  If the Bucks blatantly thwarted rules, even though they didn’t get the player, while the Heat made a smaller mistake, even if they did get the player, who should get greater punishment?

It was pretty clear that all involved thwarted the rules.  That was obvious at the time, and still obvious now.

And teams will continue to cheat, because second rounders are lottery tickets with little value.