What is tampering? It’s hard to tell nowadays, as many teams seem to get away with communications other teams have been fined for. If you ask Warriors owner Joe Lacob, he’d probably say it’s vague commentary about keeping your options open in regards to high-level players.

That quote was in reference to a larger quote which most media took out of context, as Lacob listed a number of reasons why the Warriors wouldn’t do the deal. You’d probably say that’s tampering if you didn’t like the team in question. The commentary came at a time when Ben Simmons was demanding a trade and holding out on the Philadelphia 76ers in regards to some issues he had with the organization.

But that situation raises some interesting questions. If an owner can be fined for tampering by making vague commentary with added nuance while not giving any definite “we’re interested” type of quotes, what does this qualify as?

Hey, NBA, look alive for once. Just cause Golden State is the champs, doesn’t make this a non-egregious violation of the tampering rule.

A photo directly from the Orlando Magic in which Jordan Poole, who has a pending contract extension discussion upcoming and could be a restricted free agent next season if he doesn’t get paid, appears, has to qualify as some sort of tampering if we’re going to count the fines and other ridiculous punishments which teams have gotten for things far less blatant than this.

If Poole were under contract already for an extended period of time, this would be different. But this is arguably more obvious evidence than anything related to the Ben Simmons trade deals. The circumstances come at an interesting time as well, as it was reported by Legion Hoops that there may be some interest in Jordan Poole from the Orlando camp:

The Magic have an interesting young core now with Paolo Banchero, having selected him at #1. Trying to get more young players is probably in their best interest, but to do so without any punishment when their social media account is posting photos of JP working out with the the guy they just drafted is pretty wild. The excuse that the photos should get posted cause Paolo’s in them doesn’t really work, because there’s likely plenty of other photos they could have chosen which don’t point to a controversial asset in discussion.

It remains to be seen whether or not the league will look into a possible violation like this, but if this is the kind of thing they can get away with, then the rulebook suddenly becomes a lot more subjective, somehow more than it already is.

(Photo credit: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)