NBA Investigating the Los Angeles Lakers for Tampering in Regards to Their Communication with Paul George

By Djack

The Indiana Pacers are so upset that they were fleeced by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Paul George trade, that they are now blaming the Lakers for the incompetence of their own front office. This story is actually hilarious, there's no merit or facts behind these claims, but it's the dog days of summer, no news in sports has been breaking whatsoever, so the desperate sports media has spun this non-story into something much bigger than it ever should've been. Apparently, the Lakers broke NBA tampering rules by having contact with Paul George while he was still under contract with the Pacers. Meanwhile, what really happened was the Pacers front office wasn't able to bring in another all star caliber player to match with Paul George, so he decided to voice his displeasure with the team, and ultimately say he'd like to play for his hometown Lakers. This decreased his value on the trade market since every other team viewed him as a rental since Paul George said he wanted to go home and play for the Lakers. Now, the Pacers are salty that they basically got fucked over, even though this could've been easily avoided if they were just able to grant George's wishes by putting a competitive team together, so they are taking their frustration out on the Lakers. Trying to sabotage the Lakers future/chances of landing Paul George is just a sad move by the Pacers. When it ends up completely failing, it'll just be the latest embarrassment in a stretch of awful moves made by their piss poor front office.

This whole tampering thing is total bullshit. The Warriors essentially did the same thing with Kevin Durant, didn't they? Throughout the 2015-16 season players on the Warriors were recruiting Durant to the Warriors and that was one of their only threats at the time. The Pacers and Lakers have no history, meanwhile the Warriors only threat in the western conference was Kevin Durant and the Thunder. Not even a mention of tampering in that situation, though. Now, the Lakers get called out for tampering months after the Pacers traded Paul George. Supposedly, Magic Johnson is to blame for this whole debacle. He's the one under fire, but if I know one thing, it's that everyone loves Magic. He'll be able to sway the investigators that'll be interrogating him with ease, so I'm not worried whatsoever. Also, it's nearly impossible to prove a team was tampering, so unless the Lakers left a paper trail, they should be fine.

If by some miracle the Lakers are convicted of tampering they'll certainly have to pay a costly price. They could lose first round picks, they could lose the ability to sign or trade for Paul George, and then the Lakers could lose a potential piece towards the dynasty team they plan of building. It'd be quite the blow for the organization. I mean the Lakers still have Lebron James coming in 2018, but without Paul George joining as well it'll be tough to take down the Warriors. Still, no evidence has pointed to these tampering claims being true, so like I've been saying this is a bunch of bullshit. Sad the Pacers brought it to this point, embarrassing because regardless the outcome of the investigation they'll get nothing out of it. The new president of basketball operations for the Pacers is just mad he got burnt in his first major objective with the team, so now he's trying to cover his ass. Too bad for him that it's just not going to work. So far there's been no proof of tampering and I expect that to remain the same, so fuck the Pacers and their sad sack of an attempt to sabotage the only franchise in the NBA with a shot to dethrone the Warriors in the next couple years.