NBA completely misses with Heat, Bulls tampering punishment

NBA misses with tampering punishment for Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls. 

If you’re a Chicago Bulls or Miami Heat fan, you have to be laughing hysterically with the punishment that the NBA announced amid NBA free agency tampering allegations.

Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a growing belief that the league was going to come down hard on the Bulls and Heat. However, for one reason or another, that didn’t happen and the NBA, instead, just gave the Bulls and Heat a slap on the wrist.

Officially, the league announced that the Bulls and Heat would each have to surrender their next available second-round pick. This is the type of punishment that will absolutely not scare teams away from tampering again, and one that likely won’t solve the issue of it.

Chicago and Miami agreed to sign-and-trade deals with the New Orleans Pelicans and Toronto Raptors, respectively, for Lonzo Ball and Kyle Lowry almost immediately after free agency opened this past offseason.

Considering they were deals of the sign-and-trade nature, there had to be some communication before free agency opened. Leaving the idea or assumption that tampering absolutely took place.

Add into the fact that both the Bulls and Heat are accepting this punishment, and you can almost be sure that tampering, at least to a certain extent, absolutely took place.

Nevertheless, the NBA misses again in an attempt to stop tampering from taking place in the league. Ultimately, that’s the most concerning element of this all.

For one, this suggests that the NBA doesn’t really believe this is an issue or that it doesn’t care that much about it. And two, this is not going to keep any team in the future from tampering.

This was a moment when the NBA could’ve sent a strong message. Instead, it did what almost always does, and whiffed on a potential learning experience.