After months of investigation, the NBA has come to a resolution in the cases of the acquisition of Kyle Lowry and Lonzo Ball. The point guards changed teams in the offseason, which raised some concerns within the league.
The league's front office start looking into the negotiations for these signings, finding out that the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls started negotiating deals before free agency opened at 6 p.m. ET on Aug. 2.
Officials found out they didn't do things right and have handed penalties for both squads. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the teams will forfeit their next available second-round draft pick.
Moreover, they received fines up to $10M per team and some executives were suspended. Woj adds that their cooperation with the investigation was taken into account at the time of issuing the penalties.
Kyle Lowry finished his tenure with the Toronto Raptors at the end of last season. He joined the Miami Heat via sign-and-trade, creating a Big 3 with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo in South Beach.
Lonzo Ball wasn't part of the New Orleans Pelicans' plans moving forward, which prompted the Pels to let him go via sign-and-trade. Ball landed in Chicago, creating one of the most exciting teams in the Eastern Conference alongside Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic.
Great as these moves have been, they were wrongly done and the league took care of things. Fortunately, they collaborated with the investigation, which made things easier. Still, that didn't prevent them from getting penalties, as the league hopes that the rest of the teams learn that these practices aren't allowed.
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