The New York Knicks have been fined $200,000 by the NBA for holding illegal pre-draft workouts in 2007 and 2010. The scout who ran the workouts, Rodney Heard, was fined $20,000. The Knicks will not forfeit any draft picks.
↵Over at the mothership, SBNation.com, there is disbelief at the light penalty.
↵↵↵In essence, the NBA's ruling guarantees that other teams will stage illegal workouts prior the draft. Two hundred grand is nothing in the grand scheme of scouting, especially to a franchise as lucrative as the Knicks. Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Heard worked out Wilson Chandler for weeks in 2007, breaking all manner of NBA rules in the process. The Knicks went on to pick Chandler No. 23, and he's been quite productive commensurate to his placement. Two hundred grand, to find out a mid-major prospect is worth a first-round pick? Twenty-nine other GMs would cough up that amount right now.
↵Of course, revoking a pick or two from the Knicks might be considered overboard. But this wasn't a minor, isolated violation. This was, as reported, systemic flouting of clear rules, and it potentially cost Rush, a likely lottery pick in 2007 but a late-teens pick in 2008, millions of dollars. The NBA did the opposite of making the Knicks an example; its decision made Heard, Thomas, Walsh and the Knicks look brilliant.
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