Please NBA: No more tampering investigations

If the punishment is going to be the same sorry wrist-slap every time, what's the point?

Just stop, NBA. Seriously.

Stop with the laughable tampering penalties.

Commissioning months-long investigations that all end the same way — with the team under the microscope surrendering nothing more than second-round draft compensation — is worse than conducting no investigations at all.

Last week at the annual G League Winter Showcase in Las Vegas, you could legitimately hear the chuckling at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center as word spread through the audience that the New York Knicks would be docked a 2025 second-round pick for engaging "in free agency discussions involving Jalen Brunson prior to the date when such discussions were permitted."

"If second-round picks are the only punishment," one GM told me, "nothing will ever change."