Adam Silver’s channeling his inner David Stern.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA will fine Warriors owner Joe Lacob a stunning $500,000 for… comments made on a podcast.
It was deemed a violation the league’s policy on publicly discussing collective bargaining talks.
Lacob made the comments on Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner’s Point Forward Podcast.
He discussed the Warriors’ roster and the process of the team paying a more than $340 million luxury tax bill last season, terming the tax as “very unfair.”
“The hardest thing of all is navigating this luxury tax, unfortunately,” Lacob said. “The league wants everyone to have a chance and right now, there’s a certain element out there that believes we [had a] ‘checkbook win…’”
Lacob disagreed with that sentiment, pointing out the Warriors aren’t an outrageous figure over the luxury tax and that are a mostly homegrown team.
“The truth is, we’re only $40 million more than the luxury tax,” Lacob said. “Now, that’s not small, but it’s not a massive number. We’re $200 million over in total because most of that is this incredible penal luxury tax. And what I consider to be very unfair and I’m going to say it on this podcast and I hope it gets back to whoever is listening. Obviously, it’s self-serving for me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is built by—all top eight players are all drafted by this team.”
Well, he did say he wanted his comments to get back to “whoever is listening” and the NBA heard him. It’s hard to imagine any podcast appearance is worth $500,000, let alone with the Warriors slated to pay near $200 million in luxury tax alone next season.