Disgruntled Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden was just hit with a $100,000 fine after calling Daryl Morey a âliarâ over his contract and trade situation. Harden is upset with Morey and the Sixers because he thought they were going to take care of him with a max contract in the 2023 offseason after he took a pay cut the summer before. That didn't happen, and he still hasn't been traded after he asked for one, with Philly looking to keep him into the 2023-24 season unless a legit offer comes to the table.
Harden's fine amount is the maximum allowed for this type of penalty. While it's a pretty big number, it's not that close to the biggest fines in NBA history. Let's look at those biggest fines, several of which have happened in the last few years.
4. $250,000 â Various people/teams
A $250,000 fine is almost unheard of in the NBA. If you or your team ever got slapped by a ticket this large, you very likely did something incredibly bad. There have been numerous reasons why the NBA or a team gave out this fine to a player/team/executive. For example:
- Latrell Sprewell once tried to hide a hand injury from the New York Knicks back in 2001. The injury would eventually force the forward to miss six weeks of action. As a result, he was fined $250,000 by the organization.
- In 2012, Gregg Popovich infamously rested his Big 3 of Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili in a marquee TV matchup against the LeBron James-era Miami Heat. Then-NBA commissioner David Stern fined the Spurs $250,000 for this infraction, calling their decision âa disservice to the league and fans.â
- In 1984, the NBA punished the Portland Trail Blazers for contacting then-college stars Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon (something that is strictly prohibited by the league).
- Damon Stoudamire (then a player of the Blazers) was hit with this amount in 2003 after being arrested for marijuana possession on three separate occasions.
3. $500,000 â Various people/teams, most recently Warriors owner Joe Lacob
In 2006, the Denver Nuggets were in the midst of a blowout win against the New York Knicks. During the final moments of the game, Knicks center Mardy Collins fouled Nuggets guard JR Smith hard. The ensuing brawl (which saw a young Carmelo Anthony throw a punch against a Knicks player) was punished by the league heavily, as it came just two years after the infamous Malice at the Palace. Both teams were issued a $500,00 fine by the NBA.
Back in 2007, Vladimir Radmanovic was enjoying a nice relaxing affair in snowy Utah. Unfortunately, that ski trip would end catastrophically for him. The then-Lakers forward suffered a separated shoulder after getting in an accident during that trip. After lying about it to the team initially, Radmanovic eventually came clean about the truth. As a result of violating the rules of a standard NBA contract (which state that a player must avoid non-basketball related injuries), Radmanovic was fined $500,000 by the NBA.
In 2010, then-Detroit Pistons basketball of operations Joe Dumars was docked $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential NBA memos to league insider Adrian Wojnarowski. The NBA caught Dumars red-handed thanks to an investigation. Needless to say, the Joe Dumars era with the Pistons was much better when he was a player.
Then in 2011, Miami Heat owner Micky Arison sent a series of tweets that showed his frustration with ongoing CBA negotiations during the NBA lockout. While Arison deleted the tweets quickly, he still got fined $500,000.
More recently in the 2019 NBA Finals , Warriors investor Mark Stevens pushed Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry after he dove into the stands. In addition to a $500,000 fine, Stevens was banned from all team events and activities for a year.
Joe Lacob is the latest member of the $500,000 fine club, after he tore into the NBA's current CBA and salary cap system. The Warriors owner made waves after he said that the current CBA was âunfairâ after his team went well over the luxury threshold currently implemented. As a result, he was given that hefty fine.
3. $750,000 â Dallas Mavericks | $600,000 and $500,000 (2X) â Mavs owner Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban holds the distinction as the most fined individual in NBA history in terms of number of fines acquired. The Dallas Mavericks owner has racked up around $4 million in fines since taking over the team in 2000, when taking into account the $750,000 fine the Mavs got for resting Luka Doncic and several other key players in an elimination game against the Chicago Bulls at the end of the 2022-23 season. While Dallas was technically still alive for the play-in tournament, the decision was made to tank in order to get a better chance of keeping the top-10 protected draft pick owed to the New York Knicks, which succeeded.
Cuban has never been afraid to speak his mind, even if it comes at the cost of hefty fine from the league. His largest personal fine came in 2018, when he made some incendiary comments about, ironically enough, tanking for a high draft pick. Tanking is a touchy subject in the NBA, which Cuban knows all too well at this point given how much money he has paid on the matter. Everyone knows it's happening, but no one openly admits to tanking. That, along with the controversy of Sam Hinkie's Process with the 76ers, contributed to the massive fine handed to Cuban: $600,000.
Additionally, Cuban has also been the recipient of TWO $500,000 fines from the NBA in his long tenure as the Mavs owner. These came in 2002 and in 2020, and both had the same reason: complaining about referees.
The player they landed with that tank job, by the way, was Doncic. I'd say a $600,000 fine is a worthy price to pay for the rights to draft the next cornerstone of your franchise.
2. 2.5 million â Donald Sterling
Who can forget the Donald Sterling saga? The former Los Angeles Clippers owner was hit with a whopping $2.5 million fine and banned from the NBA for life after an investigation into racist comments he made on the phone to his ex-girlfriend.
This happened in 2014 and was the maximum fine allowed for that type of infraction at the top. Sterling wound up selling the Clippers to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion after all this drama, so that turned out okay for him, but it was a permanent stain on his legacy.
Of course, the Clippers were quite often a laughingstock during Sterling's tenure as owner, so his legacy wasn't too hot to begin with.
1. $3.5 million â Minnesota Timberwolves
It's quite a long story, but here's the gist of why the Timberwolves garnered such a massive fine in 2000. In 1999, former first overall pick Joe Smith signed with Minnesota on a one-year, $1.75 million deal. That was a bizarre decision from Smith: why would a player of his pedigree take such a low deal, especially given the market for him at that time?
The reason was a rather sinister one: it was a ploy to circumvent the then-existing CBA rules. The Timberwolves were not going to be able to sign Smith to the lucrative deal he wanted. However, Glen Taylor proposed a loophole: the Wolves would sign Smith to three short and cheap one-year deals to keep their cap space often. That three years would allow them to get Smith's Bird Rights, eventually signing him to a massive deal.
That plan never came to fruition. A separate investigation by the NBA uncovered this under-the-table deal by the Timberwolves and Smith. As a result, the Timberwolves were fined a whopping $3,500,000 by the league, and they got stripped of their first-round picks until 2005. That number remains the largest fine in NBA history.
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