After discovering that the Sixers held early free agent discussions with forwards P.J. Tucker and Danuel House prior to the permitted date, the NBA announced today (via Twitter) that it has rescinded the team’s 2023 and 2024 second-round picks.
The league noted that Philadelphia “fully cooperated” with its investigation into tampering, or “gun-jumping.” The Sixers released a statement confirming the news (Twitter link via ESPN’s Tim Bontemps).
“The Philadelphia 76ers fully cooperated with the NBA’s investigation and acknowledge the league’s ruling. We’re moving forward, focused on the season ahead.”
As Shams Charania of The Athletic notes (via Twitter), while the NBA did dock the Sixers for the early discussions with Tucker and House, it found no wrongdoing with James Harden‘s significant pay cut, which gave the Sixers the flexibility to use their full non-taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Tucker and their bi-annual exception to sign House. Both players previously played with Harden on the Rockets under former president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, who is now Philadelphia’s top basketball executive.
Some around the league have wondered whether the Sixers and Harden already have a future deal in place, which is against the rules of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Such a handshake agreement would involve declining his player option in 2023 and signing a lucrative new contract at that time.
Marc Stein first reported that the Sixers were likely to face a tampering investigation, and he was also one of the first reporters to link Tucker to Philadelphia, with rival teams reportedly convinced that Tucker was signing a three-year deal for the mid-level multiple days before free agency officially opened.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link), the NBA and the Players Association are expected to discuss tampering and the punishments that teams face when found guilty, as early free agent discussions are “rampant, but hard to police and largely impossible to eliminate.” The two sides are currently in early negotiations for a new CBA.
Maybe nba should pull 1sts. 2nds teams can buy..
Sixers had traded away all possible 1sts under Stepien.
NBA can rescind any first round picks left if they don’t cooperate
One Pick should go to Heat
I don’t like the idea of trading all picks for likely 5-8 seed or likely second round exit
Why should the heat get a pick? If they wanted him they could have signed him to an extension worth more than the MLE. They chose to sign other players and save the cap flexibility to sign herro, and rightfully so. Why should they be rewarded for not offering the best deal?
Not that they should get anything, but they offered him the most they actually could, and he actually got paid less b/c he preferred to appear like he got paid more than actually get paid more, after taxes. Then they were luckily able to keep Caleb Martin, who I didnt think they’d be able to
Teams will keep doing this until they void contracts and ban the team from ever signing said players.
This is correct.
Which 76ers duo would you rather have on your team if you could have em their whole career.. Andrew Toney/Bobby Jones, Eric Snow/Allen Iverson, Tyrese Maxey/Tobias Harris, Andre Iguodala/Evan Turner or Charles Barkley/Johnny Dawkins? Rank a top3 if possible…
Absolutely #1 is Andrew Toney Bobby Jones out of all these. Toney was a killer and Bobby Jones at 6-9 could guard anybody here outside of Charles Barkley.
Everything would be covered with these two guys. Toney could be the ball handler, shooter, scorer, drive to the hole, kick it, everything a guard should do. Superb outside shot.
Then Bobby Jones does the Dirty Work. Block shots, all League defense, slash to the hole for a slam etc. Unbeatable combo out of these choices.
I gotta def disagree that BJones could stick with AI or Maxey at all lol but I dig your choice of Toney/Jones. Toney prob makes HOF if not for injuries & Jones is borderline HOF himself
Real news is that PHI was exonerated on the real charge of circumventing the salary cap rules.
Tampering is such a dumb rule, if a teams free agent is going to leave he’s going to leave. The idea that PJ Tucker can’t talk to his friends which o would imagine include Daryl Morey and James Harden before the moratorium is asinine.
How about Lowry and Butler, with 1 being the other’s kids’ godfather? Also with the Heat having already tried to trade for Lowry for 1.5 years, but having a trade together quickly is somehow tampering
I’m sorry but how is every decent player already under contract as soon as FA begins and no one is tampering?
And somehow the rest of the league didn’t.