NBA Fines Doc Rivers $50,000 For Saying Kawhi Leonard Is Good

The NBA’s ongoing freakout over tampering violations has already led the league to assess large fines to executives for making completely anodyne comments about players on other teams, and even got Anthony Davis dinged for what can broadly be described as self-tampering. Today it claimed a new victim in Clippers head coach Doc Rivers.

Rivers was a guest on an NBA Finals preview show on ESPN on Thursday night, during which he and a few other panelists were asked to talk about Kawhi Leonard. Because Rivers is a human being who can see obvious things, he said that Leonard was a very good player and described him as, “the most like [Michael] Jordan we’ve seen.”

For that statement, Rivers has been fined $50,000 by the league:

At this point, any NBA coach or executive who does not want to lose many thousands of dollars for extremely stupid reasons should just avoid talking about any basketball player on television, or in public, or honestly anywhere but the comfort of their own home.