The NBAs board of governors was unanimous Friday in its approval of a plan to stiffen potential penalties for tampering with players and employees under contract with other clubs, hoping for increased compliance in existing league rules.
Fines of up to $10 million are now possible in the most egregious situations, along with forfeiture of draft picks, suspensions of executives and voiding of contracts when rule breaking is found significant enough threats, the league hopes, to end any notion of teams entering into deals with free agents before rules allow.
We need to ensure that were creating a culture of compliance in this league, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said after two days of meetings concluded in New York. Our teams want to know that theyre competing on a level playing field and frankly dont want to feel disadvantaged if they are adhering to our existing rules.
The rules arent new, but Silver has been saying for months that its pointless for the league to have policies that cannot be enforced. And while the new parameters arent foolproof, an important change is that every franchise will have to annually certify that its executives did not to free agents or their representatives before league rules allow.
But for years, the notion of waiting for the start of free agency to talk to available players has been largely ignored. This year, free agency was to officially begin at 6 p.m. Eastern on June 30, and many deals were known to be done within minutes.
There need to be consequences when rules are violated, Silver said.
The league told teams last week that fines would be raised in part to reflect the 600% increase in league revenue and the 1,100% increase in franchise value since the maximum-fine ceilings were last touched in 1996.
There are some elements of the new measures that still need to be worked out specifically, the specifics behind the leagues new mandate that five teams will be randomly selected for investigatory audits to see if there were any rule-compliance issues. The NBA wants teams to keep records of talks with players and agents for a year, and the league has the power to review a teams electronic communications devices.
The privacy concerns, however, remain a sticking point, Silver said.
None of us want people looking into their personal communications, Silver said. But I think people who operate in a public company environment or operate in a financial world who are used to compliance procedures understand that you have to find a balance between disclosure and privacy so you can ensure that people will understand that there will be consequences for inappropriate behavior.
