The NBA has fined Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob over $700,000 for violating the league’s policy on publicly discussing collective bargaining talks.
The slip-up featured on a recording of the Point Forward Podcast hosted by Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner, where Lacob described the luxury tax system as “very unfair”.
The NBA and its players’ association have kicked off discussions for a new collective bargaining agreement which will come into effect for the 2023-24 season.
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During the recording, the self-made billionaire also defended the Warriors’ championship roster and league-leading payroll and luxury tax bills that exceed $340 million as the franchise swept the finals series.
“The hardest thing of all is navigating this luxury tax, unfortunately,” Lacob said.
“I went back to New York this week for labour meetings. I’m on the committee. And you know, obviously, the league wants everyone to have a chance and right now, there’s a certain element out there that believes we ‘chequebook win’. … ‘We won because we have the most salaries on our team.’
“The truth is, we’re only $40 million [$58m AUD] more than the luxury tax. Now, that’s not small but it’s not a massive number. We’re $200 million [$290m AU] over in total because most of that is this incredible penal luxury tax.
“What I consider to be unfair and I’m going to say it on this podcast and I hope it gets back to whoever is listening. Obviously, it’s self-serving for me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is built by … all top eight players are all drafted by this team.”
As Golden State accepted the ESPY for Best Team on Friday, Iguodala quickly jumped on stage to apologise to Lacob for setting up the blunder.
“I just came up here to promote my podcast Point Forward… We just got Joe Lacob fined $500k (USD). I’m sorry, Joe,” he told the crowd.
The Warriors paid $100 million in luxury tax in 2020-2021, $247 million in 2021-2022 and are projected to pay $263 million in 2022-2023.
This is not the first time Lacob has been fined by the NBA. Last year he was set back another $70,000 for downplaying a trade for Aussie Ben Simmons, which is in violation of the league’s tampering rules.
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