This summer, the NBA decided to crack down on the way contract negotiations are being worked out well in advance of the official windows in which they are allowed under the league bylaws. It was a response to the way free agency kicked off on June 30 with numerous deals reported mere moments after the moratorium period opened.
Clearly, those deals had been negotiated before they were officially allowed to be discussed, and the league has promised to mitigate those situations by levying hefty fines for players and organizations that try to circumvent the current guidelines. But while that sort of tampering is at the forefront of the league’s recent reforms, a team drew their ire in recent days for a different fineable offense.
On Tuesday, the NBA announced that they were fining the Milwaukee Bucks $50,000 for the comments GM Jon Horst made recently regarding Giannis Antetokounmpo’s coming contract extension, when the team plans on, unsurprisingly, offering him a supermax on July 1 of 2020.
The Milwaukee Bucks have been fined $50,000 by the NBA for violating league rules governing timing of player contract comments, when team spoke publicly about offering Giannis Antetokounmpo the super max.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 24, 2019
Fine is in response to Bucks GM Jon Horst recently saying Giannis Antetokounmpo will be offered the five-year, nearly $250M supermax next summer when he is eligible for extension. https://t.co/tUR7nIKXk7
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 24, 2019
Under rules spelled out in the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, organizations aren’t allowed to commit to giving a player a supermax until the summer after his seventh season, which means next summer for Giannis.
https://twitter.com/jgsiegel/status/1176574847654100992
Barring some unforeseen calamity, it’s a foregone conclusion that the Bucks will try to lock Giannis down for as long as possible, but in the current climate, they and other front offices will have to watch their step in terms of discussing those sorts of things publicly moving forward.
