Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob talks with superstar Stephen Curry.
The NBA has fined Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob more than $700,000 for violating the league’s policy on publicly discussing collective bargaining. The slip was featured in a recording of the Point Forward Podcast hosted by Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner, where Lacob described the luxury tax system as “very unfair.”
The NBA and its players’ association have begun discussions for a new collective bargaining agreement that will take effect for the 2023-24 season. During the taping, the self-made billionaire also defended the Warriors’ champion roster and league-leading payroll and luxury tax bills topping $340 million as the franchise swept the final series.
“Unfortunately, the hardest thing of all is managing this luxury tax,” Lacob said.
“I went back to New York this week for business meetings. I’m on the committee. And you know, obviously, the league wants everyone to have a chance and right now, there’s a certain element that believes that ‘we won with the checkbook. ‘… ‘We won because we have the most salaries on our team.’
“The truth is that we only have $40 million [$58m AUD] more than the luxury tax. Now, that’s not small, but it’s not a massive number. We are $200 million [$290m AU] in total because most of it is this incredible criminal luxury tax.
What I consider unfair and I am going to say it in this podcast and I hope it reaches whoever is listening. Obviously it’s selfish of me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is made up of… the top eight players are selected by this team.” When Golden State accepted the ESPY for Best Team on Friday, Iguodala quickly jumped onstage to apologize to Lacob for setting up the mistake.
“I just came here to promote my Point Forward podcast… we just fined Joe Lacob $500k. Sorry, Joe,” he told the crowd.
The Warriors paid $100 million in luxury taxes in 2020-2021, $247 million in 2021-2022 and are projected to pay $263 million in 2022-2023. This is not the first time Lacob has been fined by the NBA. Last year he was given another $70,000 back for downplaying a trade for Australian Ben Simmons, which violates the league’s rigging rules.