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76ers President Daryl Morey and the franchise have each been fined $75,000 for violating the league’s anti-tampering rule. The fine is in response to a social media post Morey made June 3 regarding the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 7, 2021
Stop me if you’ve heard this one...Team President Daryl Morey is in trouble for something he tweeted. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Morey got himself and his team a pair of $75,000 fines for his post on Twitter suggesting former two-time MVP Steph Curry head on down to Broad Street to join his brother Seth Curry...at least that was the implication of the tweet. See for yourself:
join 'em pic.twitter.com/ta2mxXO92O
— Daryl MorΞy (@dmorey) June 3, 2021
Steph asks little bro if he killed tonight.
The reaction by Steph came in regards to Seth’s monster game 5 in the first round when he dropped 30 and helped send the Wizards fishin’. But who knows, maybe Daryl just meant join him for dinner that night to celebrate!?
It’s not a big secret that tampering happens in the NBA. Remember the summer of 2019 when at 6:00 PM on the button there was a slew signings that took place? We kind of knew that not all of those deals were getting hashed out in real-time, and over the next couple of weeks the theme of tampering popped up with plenty of finger pointing. The Celtics even accused the Sixers of doing it with Al Horford.
It’s sort of understood that teams and agents and players find ways to connect, off the public radar, before they’re technically supposed to. But what are you going to do to stop them, monitor their texts?
Remember how many captions you saw for this fun image once upon a time?
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Former Lakers Prez Magic Johnson has famously picked up a few fines when he was running the Lake Show.
Lakers fined $50,000 for Magic Johnson tampering with Giannis Antetokounmpo https://t.co/uQSwaWtr7r
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) February 6, 2018
Sources: Pacers filed tampering charges vs. Lakers, probe centered on possible impermissible contact between Magic Johnson and Paul George.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 20, 2017
Of course, it’s not as funny when it’s a Sixer being publicly recruited:
NBA statement on finding no tampering violation between Magic Johnson/Ben Simmons: “The 76ers initiated the contact with the Lakers by requesting a meeting between Johnson and Simmons. Both organizations ultimately concluded that such a meeting did not make sense at this time…” https://t.co/7UFAGboRAm
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 12, 2019
I’m not sure that the Sixers Brass will even mind this one. Morey must have known there was a chance this was going to happen; in fact, he may have used an algorithm to calculate that it was absolutely worth tweeting. Perhaps he wants to signal to the NBA’s brightest stars that Philly is built to win, and if they want to enhance their legacies, they could do a lot worse than trusting the process.
In any event, it’s playoff time so the league doesn’t want to exhibit any leniency on this issue when names like Damian Lillard, Steph Curry, Kyle Lowry, Chris Paul and other top names will assuredly wind up in trade rumors or regarding an upcoming free agency period.
Plenty of fans have opinions on television ratings and whether or not stars might consider signing in smaller markets or leaving them for bigger markets and these types of reports and fines bring all that stuff to the forefront of league discourse. And we can be sure the Commish, Adam Silver would rather it all be about the playoffs.
It’s just not the kind of thing a fan of the fined GM can get mad about.
We can say it...hey Steph! Join ‘em!
Now what would be a good nickname for Seth and Steph in the red, white and blue since “splash brothers” is already taken? I imagine Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid would enjoy all of that shooting around them.
Fielding suggestions in the comments....
STEPH CURRY IS RIDICULOUS
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 18, 2021
(via @warriors)pic.twitter.com/LxiGuHltJu