Tuesday the NBA announced that the Oklahoma City Thunder had to surrender their 2013 second round pick to the Boston Celtics as added compensation in the Jeff Green trade.
Which raised a lot of eyebrows. Why the punishment, what was being withheld? So now the NBA has given its explanation. And my eyebrows are still up.
Green was sent to Boston (and Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City) in a 2011 trading deadline move. Green played the rest of that season for the Celtics and was going to have a key sixth man role with the team this year — until doctors discovered a heart condition that required major surgery. Green was out for the year. (He is now a free agent expected to re-sign with Boston for next season).
Boston filed a complaint after that that the league and David Stern looked into, which led to the pick being surrendered to Boston. Here was the League’s official explanation:Stern found that there was no evidence of bad faith or any intent to withhold information on the part of Thunder management or its physicians, but that Oklahoma City’s cardiologists were in possession of information about Jeff Green that was not shared with Thunder management and that should have been disclosed to the Celtics in connection with the trade of Green in February 2011.
Under NBA rules, teams are required to disclose to each other in connection with trades any information in their possession or control about a player’s prior injuries, illnesses, or other health conditions that could affect the player’s ability to play NBA basketball at any point in the future.
This still does not puzzle out for me.
The league is saying the Thunder’s cardiologist had information that there could be a future medical issue with Green that he never passed along to Thunder management? I find that a hard pill to swallow. Telling them what he finds in stress tests and other physicals is his job.
Was the information so minor he didn’t think it warranted being passed along? Were people just incompetent?
Also, if there is no bad faith, the league is still going to punish the Thunder?
There are still a lot of questions to be answered here.
