Source: Vaughn Ridley / Getty
Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta was fined by the $25,000 NBA on Monday because of his comments about the not-yet-official Russell Westbrook trade his Houston Rockets made last week.
Just hours after Adrian Wojnarowski broke the story of the Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook trade, Fertitta was speaking to Mark Berman of Fox 26 about how he was excited to have Russell Westbrook on the team.
We’re excited to have Russell Westbrook. I would watch him play for Oklahoma City and he’s so athletic. At the same time, this franchise had two years with the most wins it’s ever had in consecutive years, and we wouldn’t that without Chris Paul. Chris Paul is unbelievable and he’s gonna be sadly missed.
These comments came before the trade was made official by the two teams, and according to league rules, that’s tampering.
Marc Stein, formerly of ESPN, currently with the New York Times was the first to report the fine.Fertitta is not the only deep pocketed owner to be coming out of pocket for league rules this week. It was also announced that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $50,000 for leaking information about the league’s Board of Governors meeting.
The total irony behind that whole situation is that the league did not announce the fine of Cuban to the public, but rather a memo to inform teams according to Tim McMahon of ESPN.
That means someone leaked information about the fining of an owner who leaked information. You have to love the NBA and it’s official business.
Cuban obviously didn’t mind the fine as he quickly admitted to leaking the information about the result of the coaching challenges to reporters shortly after Kings owner Vivek Ranadive expressed concerns about someone leaking info while the meetings were still taking place.
Dallas Mavericks & Houston Rockets Owners Fined for Violating League Rules was originally published on cassiuslife.com
