With the recent fine of Magic Johnson, I'm really wondering if Silver and the NBA office are just messing around or dead serious. Silver said the message of the $50,000 fine to execs is stop talking about players on other teams. Does he have a point? If they allow just talk about anything, will GMs praise players they covet to no end and have an advantage in getting those players? Or is it ridiculous and over the top? I think what Magic said was fine and have a hard time accepting fines for simply 'talking' - freedom of speech and all that. But I guess I get that in some circumstances it could be unprofessional, if a GM goes out of his way to talk about a certain player all the time. In Magic's case, it was unwarranted.
I just don't see how you truly stop someone calling someone else through a third party, and meeting in private, handing over a few brown bags full of $100s, and saying see you in a year or two. I think the League needs to try their best to eradicate tampering. However I thought the fine on Magic was ridiculous. That's not tampering. I'm almost certain every single player in the NBA has an entire posse full of 'yes men' who blow smoke up their ass every second of the day. What Magic said isn't anything Giannis hasn't heard 52824587 times already in the past month. He's not going to think about what Magic said come free agency.
Silver seems to be showing that side of himself that is less shiny. I liked him before, but he's different now.
Silver is sending a message. 50K is just a slap on the wrist for Magic and he probably wouldn't have had it if weren't for his previous transgression.
Does public discourse perpetuate a competitive imbalance in the league? Well it doesn't HELP, but the deck is already stacked in favor of large markets. Your mom is a large market. Your mom is the New York Knicks. She's been awful for a long time and we don't quite understand why.