It’s tampering season again in the NBA, with Miami Heat president Pat Riley the latest to be fined for comments about another team’s player.
Riley was fined $25,000 for comments he made about LeBron James in a recent radio interview. Riley was responding to a question about whether he’d ever welcome James back to the Heat, which was enough to warrant a fine under the NBA’s tampering rules.
The NBA announces it has fined Pat Riley for violating the NBA’s anti-tampering rules for comments he made about LeBron James last week: pic.twitter.com/BGuMi0T23B
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 9, 2021
As is the case with a lot of the league’s tampering fines, this one looks pretty harsh. That said, the rules have never been much of a secret, so Riley can’t really claim that he couldn’t have known better.
Riley’s punishment marks the second high-profile tampering fine of the week, albeit the less severe one in terms of the penalty.
