National Basketball Association fines Clippers for their pitch to Jordan

Basically, the Clippers tried selling Jordan on L.A.by offering an endorsement.

The Clippers’ pitch flopped – Jordan agreed to a contract with Dallas the next day – before changing his mind and eventually re-signing with the Clippers. Days later, it was reported that Jordan was going accept a four-year, $80 million offer with the Mavericks. It will just cost the Clippers a quarter of a million dollars.

The violations all occurred during a July 2 presentation given by the Clippers to Jordan during his wild free agency week in which he first verbally committed to the Mavs before ultimately re-signing with the Clippers.

The NBA’s anti-circumvention rules prohibits teams from providing or arranging others to provide any compensation to players unless it is included in the player’s contract or is permitted under the collective bargaining agreement.

The Clippers violated National Basketball Association rules by offering Jordan an improper third-party endorsement opportunity during a free-agent presentation on July 2.

The reason this rule is in place because you don’t want connected business partners trying to sweeten the pot and circumvent the salary cap situations. Clippers fans were ecstatic over re-signing the only big man that they could and Mavericks fans were sulking about being burned in favor of the ex-girlfriend.