It didn’t take long for the NBA to conclude its investigation into the Suns and the signing of Drew Eubanks. It was indeed necessary to verify whether or not the Phoenix franchise had had a “ early contact » with the interior at the time of “free agency”.
Because the latter had signed very quickly, just a few minutes after the market opened, a two-year contract at minimum salary with the Suns.
The league wanted to check if there was not a history of “tampering” below and if all this had not happened too quickly, therefore prepared in advance. The NBA concluded that if, ESPN teaches us.
Result: like the Sixers or the Bulls and the Heat before them, the Suns receive the classic sanction for this type of offense: the loss of a second round of the Draft. Phoenix, like Philadelphia, will therefore only be able to speak in the first round of the 2024 Draft.
Tampering : practice of illegally making contact or talking about a player under contract with another team before the free agency period. This can be direct contact, via an agent, or through the press, as Magic Johnson did in the past with Paul George and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Recently, the Sixers, Bulls and Heat were punished for “tampering.”
