Am2626 wrote:dougthonus wrote:Clint Eastwood wrote:But how was it tampering? Were there unsigned players involved? Can’t westbrook talk to his friend and say I’d love to be traded to the lakers to play with you, ill talk to my front office to see if we can work something out.
LeBron can't legally try and convince him to come to the Lakers. The fact that they are signed with other teams actually makes it worse and more harmful from a practical perspective, but as I noted, the league doesn't have power to stop player from meetings or audit their communication so regardless of how illegal the conversation may be, there is no proof.
If they can’t stop those things then in my opinion they should not waste time and energy into this which isn’t anywhere as bad as players on other teams colluding to form super teams. This all started in 2011 when LeBron, Wade, and Bosh gave teams false hope when they already knew they were all going to the Heat. Teams like the Bulls suffered because of that. Where is the fairness for teams like the Bulls there?
Completely agree.
Perhaps the stupidest place to enforce tampering is a quiet period around guys who are actually FAs in the coming off-season and those conversations are perfectly legal in a few days or weeks. There is no harm here. It's totally irrelevant. The other thing is when guys (coaches, players, whoever) are taking TV analyst roles and make some comment about a player or answer a question in the press, and they fine the guy. Like really, some player hears a GM say he's good in a public press comment once and now wants to go there? It's just dumb.
The thing you should really try to stop is when guys try to get guys to demand a trade and try to get them to get out of a contract they are presently in. That presents real harm.