The NBA takes its rules against tampering violations very seriously. The Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat are the latest examples to find that out the hard way.
The NBA announced they were levying penalties against both the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat for transactions that they made this offseason. This investigation into the acquisitions of Lonzo Ball and Kyle Lowry has been going on since August and the league determined that both teams will be losing a second-round draft pick as punishment.
The Bulls acquired Lonzo Ball from the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for Tomas Satoransky, Garrett Temple and a future second-round pick. The Heat acquired Lowry from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Goran Dragic, Precious Achiuwa and a future second-round pick.
As Marc Stein pointed out, this isn’t a very severe punishment for what the teams did.
What makes this even more of a joke is the fact that the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat do not have second round picks to surrender for many years. The next time second round that the Bulls own is in 2026, while the Heat do not have their own second rounder until 2028.
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This is something that will certainly raise some eyebrows, especially for anyone with vesting interest in the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks, who won the 2021 NBA Finals, had tampering charges levied against them and they were hit with much harsher penalties.
Milwaukee lost a second-round pick and was hit with a fine. The acquisition of Bogdan Bogdanovic was what was in question and the Bucks ended up losing out on him. He landed with the Atlanta Hawks as a result.
So, not only did the Milwaukee Bucks lose the player they were targeting, they were docked a fine in addition to the loss of a draft pick while the Chicago Bulls and Heat got to keep the players in question and lost only a second-round pick without a fine.
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Ultimately it did not end up hurting the Bucks, as they are very happy with how the 2020-21 season turned out. But, Milwaukee deserves some answers as their punishment was a lot more severe compared to what Chicago and Miami were dealt for what is seemingly the same violation.