Chicago Bulls: Lonzo Ball signing becomes official, despite investigation

The earliest signing that was reported last week during the free agency negotiation window saw the Chicago Bulls pull off a big sign-and-trade deal to get restricted free agent point guard Lonzo Ball from the New Orleans Pelicans. Arturas Karnisovas and the Bulls going out to nab Lonzo from the Pelicans was also essentially the first signing that was announced from the major media voices around the NBA landscape last week, namely from Adrian Wojnarowski and Shmas Charania.

Not only did the Bulls have the signing of Lonzo announced within seconds of the beginning of the free agency negotiation window on the evening of Aug. 2, there was a sign-and-trade announced for this deal. What the Bulls shipped off in this deal included a second-round draft pick, veteran shooting guard Garrett Temple, and combo guard Tomas Satoransky.

That wasn’t all that much for Karnisovas and the Bulls to divulge to get the point guard that this team wanted for the future. It definitely wasn’t as much as the Bulls had to give up to the San Antonio Spurs to nab star shooting guard/forward DeMar DeRozan later on last week.

Chicago Bulls officially announce the signing of Lonzo Ball as tampering investigation rages on

But in the days following the Bulls signing of Lonzo, there was an investigation put into place by the NBA to look into potential tampering from any of the sides involved. Tampering penalties for this move could range from a slap on the wrist/a warning, all the way to lost draft picks or the voiding of this deal for the Bulls and Pelicans.

While it’s very unlikely that the NBA will completely void this sign-and-trade between the Bulls and Pelicans featuring Lonzo, it’s still a possibility. And this is a possibility that the Bulls definitely don’t want to play out.

The move was officially announced for the Bulls in this sign-and-trade deal for Lonzo over the weekend in an official release from the team.

According to a report from Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times on Aug. 8, the Bulls should be a bit more “uneasy” than originally anticipated with how much the NBA is seriously enforcing these tampering investigations of late. The NBA is also namely looking into the Miami Heat signing of the former Toronto Raptors veteran point guard Kyle Lowry for tampering this offseason.

We’ll continue to monitor this developing storyline as it plays out in the coming days and weeks. The Bulls organization did not release a statement on any potential thoughts on the NBA’s investigation over the weekend.

While the Bulls’ management tries to lock in the signing of Lonzo without issue in the midst of this NBA investigation, Chicago’s Las Vegas Summer League team opens up its schedule on the afternoon of Aug. 9. The Bulls are taking on the Pelicans, ironically enough, to open up the Summer League slate this week.