Lakers fined $500k for tampering with Paul George
Publicly and privately this spring, the Los Angeles Lakers made clear their interest in Paul George.
That was enough to land the franchise in hot water for violating the NBA’s anti-tampering rules.
But the NBA’s investigation of the Lakers turned up no evidence that the team ever reached an agreement or understanding to acquire George or sign him if he becomes a free agent next summer, the league announced on Thursday.
Still, the league hit the Lakers with a $500,000 fine, saying in a release that Los Angeles general manager Rob Pelinka had communications with George’s agent, Aaron Mintz, that “constituted a prohibited expression of interest in the player while he was under contract.”
George – who has one year remaining on his contract and a player option for 2018-19 – has since been traded to the Thunder. At the time he was under contract with the Indiana Pacers, who alleged the Lakers violated the NBA’s anti-tampering rules and sparked the league’s investigation.
The NBA found Pelinka’s communications with Mintz about George violated anti-tampering rules, which prohibit teams from “interfering with other teams’ contractual relationships with NBA players, including by publicly expressing interest in a player who is currently under contract with another team or informing the agent of another team’s player of interest by one’s own team in that player.”
In a statement released Thursday, Pelinka said the Lakers “respect and accept
the NBA’s decision.” He added, “On behalf of the Los Angeles Lakers, I want to express our regret over this unfortunate incident to both our fans and the NBA.”
The Lakers’ fine, according to the NBA release, reflected a previous tampering warning made by the league to the team after Magic Johnson’s April 20 appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
During an interview, Kimmel asked Johnson, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, if Johnson could speak to George if the two men crossed paths on vacation.
Johnson replied that he and George could “say ‘hi’ because we know each other.”
Then Johnson added, “You just can’t say, ‘Hey, I want you come to the Lakers,’ even though I’m going to be wink-winking.”
Johnson gave some exaggerated winks and said, “You know what that means, right?” then continued to wink after he shook hands with Kimmel.
Earlier in the interview, Johnson said that he was briefed on NBA anti-tampering rules after being named the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, joking that he’d been to “tampering school.”
In June, Adrian Wojnarowksi, then of The Vertical, reported that Mintz had informed the Pacers that George would opt out of the final year of his contract and not re-sign with Indiana after the upcoming season. Mintz also informed the Pacers that the Lakers were George’s preferred landing spot, Wojnarowksi reported.
On June 30, the Pacers traded George to the Thunder for guard Victor Oladipo and forward Domantas Sabonis.
At an introductory news conference on July 13 in Oklahoma City, George said he’s not looking past the upcoming season to potential free agency.
“When I get there, we’ll address that, but right now me and Russ (Westbrook) have something to build now, and we’ll see where it takes us,” George said. “You know, it could be something that’s special that we build and want to continue on building. So we’ll wait to get to that.”