There are some NBA team that will benefit from the stricter tampering rules, including the more conservative of those like the Chicago Bulls.
One of the notoriously most slow moving franchises in the free agent market in the past decade in the NBA resides right here in the Windy City. The front office and ownership for the Chicago Bulls became well known around the NBA for whiffing on stars in free agency and abiding by the old “family values” of the Reinsdorfs in this organization from the top down. But that didn’t really get the Bulls too far on their way to playoff contention in the last five years.
Most of the moves the Bulls make are too seemingly appeal to the local fans to try and get them excited to spend more money on the team for the upcoming season. It was easy to come away with that thought when the Bulls signed players like forward Jabari Parker and shooting guard Dwyane Wade in the last three years.
John Paxson and Gar Forman had a hard time covering up those weird signings in free agency of late too. GarPax caught a ton of criticism along the way for that.
However, there’s also ample reason to believe that change is on the horizon for this organization. Between making roster moves that make sense and build up the franchise in the right direction and the NBA enforcing stricter tampering rules, the Bulls could be trending up for a while to come. Since the Bulls keep such an old school mindset toward landing big name free agents, the previously loosely enforced tampering rules played completely against their favor.
Even as recent as this offseason, Bulls fans were clamoring at the fact that the front office didn’t make any moves to land a number of the stars that hit the free agent market. While the Bulls still had a pretty good free agent haul, they didn’t hit a home run (as usual) with any of the huge names on the market.
The good news for the Bulls and their fans potentially came after owner’s meetings this offseason that could bring a stricter enforcement of tampering rules. According to Sports Illustrated’s break down of the new NBA tampering rules, the consequences look much more severe.
Among those new rules could be fines of up to $5 million for any individual team official found to be guilty of breaking the tampering guidelines. Teams can also be deducted draft picks, which would be a much bigger detriment that anything that is imposed now.
The two major NBA franchises out of Los Angeles were two of the more hot buttoned topics this summer in terms of tampering with big time free agent superstars. But that was the world NBA fans lived in for a while, and a more conservative and traditional team like the Bulls could definitely benefit from stricter tampering enforcement and penalties.