On Wednesday, the NBA finally announced a ruling regarding their tampering investigation into the Kyle Lowry and Lonzo Ball acquisitions for the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. Luckily, the penalties shouldn’t set them back much, if at all. The Association announced each team will be forced to forfeit their next available second-round selection in the NBA Draft.
Both the Bulls and Heat still had their 2022 second-round selections, prior to this ruling.
Miami Heat unbothered by league’s decision
The Miami Heat released a short statement via the official twitter account of the organization.
Who can blame them? The Heat are in third place of the Eastern Conference, with Kyle Lowry starting 19-of their-21 games. In other words, losing a pick likely to fall in the late 50s-early 60s isn’t a huge loss.
The same goes for the Bulls. Acquiring Lonzo Ball, along with other moves, has proven to be a great decision that has helped them take the next step as the current No. 2 seed in the East. Ball ranks tenth in the NBA with 1.8 steals per game, but it appears the Bulls are the ones getting the bigger steal at the end of the day.
For the Bulls and Heat, they would likely do their offseason the same way if given the chance for a do-over. Losing a second-round pick is simply a slight slap on the wrist. It’s not going to deter anyone from tampering. It almost seems like a way of acting like they want to hand out a punishment, just to say they’ve done so, but it likely won’t make any other teams around the Association very happy.
After all, some still remember when the Minnesota Timberwolves were stripped of three first-round picks during the Kevin Garnett era for the Joe Smith fiasco. While this situation is different, the league’s punishment system has drastically changed over the years.
Of course, tampering is wrong, but to be fair, all teams seem to bend the rules when it comes to player acquisitions, the Heat and Bulls simply got caught doing what every other NBA team likely does in some manner. Will these minor infractions really prevent them from doing the same next offseason, if given the chance?
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