In the midst of an NBA offseason that has seen some of the top players in the game change teams, owners are reportedly discussing ways to change free agency.
At a meeting of the NBA’s board of governors in Las Vegas earlier this month, it became apparent that many in the league were not pleased with how quickly a number of top players (Kemba Walker, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, etc.) signed once free agency officially opened at 6 p.m. on June 30.
As such, the league is now investigating the timing of some of the earliest reported free-agency deals and could potentially punish teams it finds to be guilty of tampering ahead of the opening of free agency, according to a new piece by Zach Lowe and Brian Windhorst on ESPN.
The board of governors also discussed that it might be necessary to clear up the gray areas of league’s tampering rules as well as revisit the free-agency process in the next collective bargaining agreement. While no changes are imminent, the league office is expected to offer “a proposal for a revised set of rules that would then be strictly enforced.”
In addition to other changes, that proposal could actually introduce an expanded tampering window which would make the entire free-agency process more transparent.
“In any case, it’s important to remember the league is just coming down from a period of intense activity and drama,” Lowe and Windhorst write. “Teams and league officials are still grappling with it. For many of them, the emotions are raw. The end result may be a minor change to the calendar, phased in down the line, or no change at all. But the events of the first week of July have stakeholders across the league discussing the underpinnings of how the NBA does business with a new urgency.”
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