The Miami Heat organization is being investigated on potential tampering violations involving their recent sign and trade for Kyle Lowry. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN stated, on August 7th, that the league is looking into whether Miami and Toronto had any contact with the players in the Lowry sign-and-trade before August 2nd at 6 PM.
It is the second consecutive offseason that the league has launched an investigation into a potential tampering violation of a sign and trade. The NBA launched an investigation into the Bogdan Bogdanović sign and trade on November 17th of last year. Bucks owner Marc Lasry gloated about the sign and trade in a board of governors meeting.
The tampering investigation involving Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry is different from the Bogdan Bogdanovic investigation last year, and here’s how.
Lasry’s behavior propelled an opposing team to submit a tampering complaint to the league office. The tampering complaint forced the league to open an investigation. The league ended up avoiding the trade because it happened before the free agency negotiation window opened.
More importantly, the Bucks could not reconstruct the sign and trade as the deal was done without Bogdanović’s consent. Bogdanović told Sam Amick of The Athletic (paywall) that the Sacramento Kings didn’t inform him of the sign and trade before it was leaked to the public.
More importantly, Milwaukee hadn’t reached out to his representatives before the transaction to see if he was interested in joining the team. Consequently, the Milwaukee Bucks were docked a future second-round draft pick and couldn’t get their player, as Bogdanović would end up signing an offer sheet with the Atlanta Hawks a few days later.
The Lowry sign and trade investigation is significantly different from Bogdanović’s situation because Miami and Lowry had a mutual interest in a potential union for almost five months. Lowry wanted to join the Heat in March to play his close friend Jimmy Butler. Unfortunately, Toronto and Miami couldn’t consummate a deal. Toronto wanted Tyler Herro, along with Duncan Robinson, as the centerpieces of a Lowry trade.
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However, Miami was only willing to give up Duncan Robinson in the trade. The disagreement in compensation led to Kyle Lowry staying in Toronto for the rest of the season. Although the Kyle Lowry sign and trade investigation is significantly different from the Bogdanović investigation, it could resemble some aspects of the Juwan Howard investigation.
The Heat signed Juwan Howard to a seven-year, $98 million contract in 1996. Unfortunately, Miami didn’t have the cap space to sign him for two reasons. Miami re-signed Alonzo Mourning to a $112 million contract for seven seasons. They also had to give bonuses to Tim Hardaway and PJ Brown. Over two weeks after the Howard deal was reported, the league launched an investigation and voided the contract.
25 years later, the Heat are in a similar situation with the cap as they entered free agency with no cap space due to the Duncan Robinson and Victor Oladipo cap holds. If the league determines that the Lowry sign and trade is illegal, Miami won’t have enough room to sign Lowry outright.
The Miami Heat could acquire Lowry by trading Goran Dragić to another team, which will clear 19 million dollars off their books. Once they have traded Dragic, Miami would have to send the player they received from the hypothetical Dragic trade or Tyler Herro and Precious Achiuwa in a revamped sign and trade for Lowry.
In conclusion, the Kyle Lowry investigation has the potential to look similar to the Juwan Howard situation back in 1996.