David Stern answered a few questions yesterday about a number of topics, including the proposed free agent summit that was first mentioned by Dwyane Wade.
Q. Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts on the free agent summit and how the League and the Board of Governors might feel about that strategizing?
COMMISSIONER DAVID STERN: There is no free agent summit.
Q. Some of these players conferred when they signed their most recent contract.
COMMISSIONER DAVID STERN: Our players talk to each other all the time. They talk to each other on Team USA. They talk to each other. I think they have a meeting every year around our draft. I’ve been assured at the highest level that there is no summit. But I would expect our players to talk to one another, and we don’t have any problem with that. If some kind of tampering is implicated, I will have a later and different view, but we’re not expecting that.
Q. There is no free agency summit, you told them there isn’t or they told you?
COMMISSIONER DAVID STERN: No, they told me.
Q. Would you have told them there isn’t?
COMMISSIONER DAVID STERN: No. They can have it. I was wondering whether they would get together, eight players and they’ll all look at D Wade’s ring? They’d be better off watching these Finals to see how you construct a team and how you play and the like. There’s not going to be a summit.
I put that bit in bold because it seems important. Is Stern saying that a couple of players can’t get together and decide where they want to play? Ultimately, it’s up to the team to agree to sign each player, so that’s why there are such strict rules about tampering with regard to owners and franchises.
So if Wade calls up LeBron and they agree to play for the Heat, is that considered tampering? If not, where is the line drawn? Three? Five? What if there are eight players in a room discussing their options?
What constitutes tampering?
Photo from fOTOGLIF
