NBA Teams Asking League to Investigate Brooklyn Nets for Side Deals

It was inevitable, the league and media kept hinting at this. Billionaire Russian buys team, sky's the limit. He doesn't care how much he spends or if he does it the right way because he wants to best the Heat, I don't blame him.

 

Didn't the cold war end? This is ridiculous

There is no way Stern stains the last few months of his legacy playing this game.

 

teams??? more like the miami heat asked league to investigate. lol

 

This should be a part of my circumvention thread really. In this case it's fairly obvious that circumvention has taken place. AK-47 wanted a deal at $8 million a season and multiple teams couldn't get it done. And he was wanting Minny to sign-and-trade him. Only thing was Brooklyn didn't have anything Minny wanted for him and apparently no other teams did either. Plenty of circumstantial evidence if the league office simply corroborates the testimony of the other teams that were trying to acquire AK-47 either outright by signing him or by sign-and-trade. They should be able to show that he had multiple opportunities to accept a sign-and-trade deal for more money or to sign outright for more money to a different team.

This is circumstantial evidence combined with the fact that the owner is Russian and the player is Russian.

IF the league does not rule that this is circumvention they will once again be making themselves hypocrites after becoming immersed in the minutia of the Celtics Clippers deal and preventing that deal from being completed. They should rescind the contract and not allow AK-47 to play there for at least one season if they are going to be consistent with how they scuttled the Celtics/Clippers deal.

 

Oh you.

They have to actually prove he is getting something in additional benefits for it to be circumvention. There's nothing wrong with him taking less to play for one team that another team offered. My understanding is that he wanted to go to the Spurs but they couldn't work out a S&T with Minnesota.

 

Russian billionaire will have you killed if you go looking in mother land.

 

I wonder how this plays out for the owner if indeed he is doing this. He's way over the lux tax so the only thing he can do to maneuver is by S&T and sign for the exceptions and minimums.

Assuming he bought of AK and his agent, this tactic would seem to only work for sign players to the exceptions and mins.

Unless he starts buying off other owners and the draft, he can't do much else. The price he pays is alienating himself from the rest of the league executives. No one will want to deal with him if he's not playing by the rules so you can forget S&T deal.

Again unless he starts buying off other owners I don't see how he can get very far with this tactic.

 

mind blown by this post.

 

If taking less money is sufficient evidence for circumvention, then should the Dwight deal be rescinded too?

Kirilenko has made 100 mil + over his career. Probably 200 mil + once you add contracts and endorsements in Russia. He can afford to sacrifice 7 mil to play on a contender.
Prokhorov is as shady as they come and nothing would surprise me, but the league would have to actually prove it.

 

Nets are a scary looking team.

 

They got Ak 47

 

185 million payroll for a team like this? Highly suspicious. Could Prokhorov be using the Nets to front his ill gotten gain? Think the FBI should look into as well. Something does not add up and sounds really shady indeed and in Brooklyn too.

Professional sports <-> Gambling <-> Mafia, sounds familiar?

 

Actually they don't have to prove it beyond circumstantially. They can use circumstantial evidence. Read Article XIII.

 

You have no circumstantial evidence of circumvention. He negotiated with the Spurs, the Spurs failed to reach a deal with the TWolves. He ends up signing with the Nets for lower than market value perhaps because he wants to win a title.

Now, if the league investigates they might FIND something worthwhile, but there is none right now.