NBA Opens Investigation Into Bucks, Kings Sign-And-Trade With Bogdan Bogdanovic
The NBA has opened a tampering investigation into the reported sign-and-trade between the Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings involving Bogdan Bogdanovic.
Reports of the deal leaked to the media on Monday evening and opposing front offices were allegedly angered by the move.
The deal reportedly fell apart Wednesday with Bogdanovic\'s camp claiming no agreement was ever reached.
As a restricted free agent, Bogdanovic was not allowed to open contract talks until the start of free agency on Friday.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN suggests this deal was not unique in being agreed upon early, but the issue was the way in which it was leaked to the media.
\"This deal basically fell apart because scrutiny about it possibly being done too early, and yes, it was done too early,\" said Windhorst. \"There were probably rules violated. But there were rules violated everywhere.\"
\"There\'s rules violated every day if we\'re talking about that kind of thing,\" replied Tim MacMahon.
\"So Milwaukee is in a situation where there are teams out there that if their players are probably tampering with Giannis. \'Come play with me.\' I\'m not saying any teams are actually doing that, but there are players out there who have probably said to Giannis, \'Come play with me next year. This is going to be great.\' Or whatever. And even if this hasn\'t happened yet, they\'re preparing for it. They\'re prepared to fend off tampering for Giannis. They\'re out there trying to make a deal to try to keep Giannis.
\"And this deal fell apart, guys, because Bogdanovic was lined up for it. The reports are that his agency hadn\'t signed off on the deal. That Sacramento and Milwaukee had negotiated a sign-and-trade but hadn\'t actually negotiated the contract yet. But call it whatever you want, but Sacramento is negotiating with Milwaukee to get Bogdanovic... I guess in a court of law if you\'re trying to prove tampering, you could probably say \'We didn\'t actually negotiate the contract with him. You just had the car waiting at the airport with the paperwork in the car. He didn\'t actually sign it.\'\"
\"It was my understanding that Bogdanovic wanted, or still wants to be, had interest in being a Milwaukee Buck. Being a teammate of Giannis. And this is why this whole thing went down this path. But it\'s blown up. And the Bucks had to cut Ersan Ilyasova today because his contract became fully guaranteed if they didn\'t cut him today. And the issue is that I think Milwaukee was still trying to hope to save this deal, but they don\'t know if the league would potentially void this. They don\'t know whether another offer would come in that they can\'t match. And then all of a sudden they\'ve held onto Ilyasova and their options of going in another direction are compromised. They had to cut Ilyasova and now they\'re saying \'I guess we\'re going to keep Donte DiVincenzo, we\'ll have our midlevel exception and go out there and try to find other players.\' And the deal kind of fell apart because of scrutiny over tampering while the team they were allegedly taking him away from was okay with him going.\"