A year ago, after a second consecutive season extended by the pandemic, the Miami Heat stood poised for the delayed start of NBA free agency on Aug. 2.
Or, in the view of the NBA, a year ago, after a second consecutive season extended by the pandemic, the Heat already stood knee deep in the process.
No sooner had word spread of the Heat’s sign-and-trade agreement with the Toronto Raptors for Kyle Lowry minutes after that Aug. 2, 2021, opening bell of free agency then the league stood T’d off. T for tampering.
Five days later, it was confirmed that the NBA indeed was investigating. Four months later, the Heat were docked a second-round pick in June’s draft.
The Heat’s reaction? “While we disagree, we accept the League’s decision. We are moving on with our season.” With Lowry in place the Heat finished with the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, one victory from a spot in the NBA Finals.
Now, a year later, the question is whether the NBA will be uniform in its approach to what is considered “gun jumping,” making free-agency overtures ahead of the allowable window.
Already, as ESPN reported, the NBA is looking into the creative — and dare we say, pre-planned? — approach by the Philadelphia 76ers that helped them swiftly lock up former Heat power forward P.J. Tucker at the very start of free agency. That well may have involved some shenanigans with the free-agency deal of James Harden.
But Exhibit A of “gun jumping” this year stands as the New York Knicks, who could not have been more transparent with their courtship of Dallas Mavericks free-agent guard Jalen Brunson, from Knicks brass attending one of his playoff games courtside, to New York’s hire of Jalen’s father, former NBA guard Rick Brunson, as a coach in June, to Jalen’s representation by Sam Rose, son of Knicks President Leon Rose.
It is, of course, how the game is played, how the game always has been played.
Even Mavericks owner Mark Cuban shrugged it off during NBA summer league.
“No, they were perfect. I saw nothing wrong at all,” Cuban said on Sirius/XM NBA Radio, sarcasm in his tone. “That’s just the business. That’s just the way it works. You know, that’s not my job to determine. That’s up to the NBA. It is what it is. It’s done.”
Based on the Knicks’ desperation to get a deal done with a free agent, any free agent, being docked a second-round pick likely will be viewed as a cost of doing business. Remember, this is a team that was in the 2010 bidding for Chris Bosh and LeBron James and came away with Amar’e Stoudemire. It’s a team that decided Brunson was worth $104 million over four years.
The Heat weren’t alone in being docked a second-round pick last summer, with the Chicago Bulls hit with the same sanction for the timing with their sign-and-trade free-agency transaction with Lonzo Ball. Lacking a second-round pick in this past June’s draft, the Bulls remain on the hook for that penalty.
So are the Knicks next in the penalty box, even ahead of the 76ers? Unlike the Heat and Knicks last summer, the agreement with Brunson was straight up, no need for involvement with a third party, as the Heat required with the Raptors for Lowry or the Bulls with the New Orleans Pelicans for Ball.
The Heat, in fact, last month lost Tucker even before the Knicks’ agreement with Brunson became clear minutes after the 6 p.m. June 30 start of free agency. For days, it was known that Tucker had an offer in hand of the $10.5 million mid-level exception from the 76ers, at a time the 76ers still had significant work to do with Harden in order to clear room for Tucker under the hard cap.
As with all matters involving NBA free agency, the timing of Tucker’s agreement with the 76ers initially was met with as much of a shrug as the timing of Brunson’s agreement.
The reality now, as it was with the Heat and Bulls last summer, is that if the extra cost for such pre-arranged agreements is a forfeited second-round pick, so be it. The Heat assuredly would have tossed in such a pick to close a Lowry deal last summer, as would have the Bulls with Ball. And the Knicks’ desperation, as evidenced by the largesse with Brunson’s contract, showed New York likely would have, as well. Perhaps that sanction hits the 76ers, as well.
As it was, this year’s draft was reduced to 58 selections, with the Milwaukee Bucks docked a 2022 second-round pick for previous free-agency malfeasance in 2021 with Bogdan Bogdanovic.
To the league office, such is considered punishment.
To the league’s teams, it is the cost of doing business.
So the Knicks and 76ers next?
Or did tampering fatigue again set in after the Heat and Bulls got clipped a year ago?
