The Los Angeles Clippers were fined $250,000 on Tuesday after violating National Basketball Association regulations prohibiting teams from offering players unauthorized business or investment opportunities.
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The Jordan free agency saga hardly lacked drama, contemplating the 27-year-old had verbally agreed to sign with the Dallas Mavericks before ultimately reversing course & opting to remain with the Clippers.
After winning his lawsuit against Dominick’s grocery chain, Michael Jordan is back in the news this week, but this time he’s actually taking a rare L. Commissioner Adam Silver has made it clear that National Basketball Association teams cannot use third-party deals (like the promise of corporate sponsorships) to sign its players – all the perks of a contract have to be something the team can give you directly (like the best parking spot, or a promise you don’t have to play center). We believed we were doing this the right way, and any circumvention was inadvertent. League’s own investigation found the Clippers guilty of violating anti-circumvention rule. Now, unlike when Mark Cuban openly discussed free agent signings before the free agent moratorium was over, the Clippers didn’t seem to recruit Jordan in any way out of the ordinary (as argued above).
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In the end, tinfoil aside, the Clippers resigned Jordan. With every collective bargaining negotiation featuring talk of competitive balance and the necessity for a lower cap, preserving the sanctity of those rules matters to the league’s ability to claim an even playing field for all 30 franchises. This fine is 1/82,400 of his net value.
