NBA fines 76ers' Daryl Morey $70,000 for tweet about Harden

Houston Rockets guard James Harden shoots over Portland Trail Blazers forward Robert Covington. Photo / AP

The NBA fined Philadelphia president of basketball operations Daryl Morey US$50,000 (NZ$70,400) today for a since-deleted tweet about Houston's James Harden that violated the league's anti-tampering rule.

A tweet was posted to Morey's account Dec. 20 in commemoration of the anniversary of another tweet he had sent commemorating Harden breaking Calvin Murphy's record for most assists as a member of the Rockets. Morey was with the Rockets at that time.

The tweet from this year was deleted. Typically, teams are prohibited from discussing players under contract to other teams and the NBA has warned clubs that it can be considered tampering.

Morey was fined for an anniversary tweet on a past Harden accomplishment with Rockets that popped up on his twitter feed. He deleted it several minutes later. Morey told league it was an inadvertent post from an automated app, sources said. https://t.co/HJmJUED460

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 28, 2020

Harden has been mentioned in trade talks for several weeks.

A tweet by Morey in 2019 led to major problems for the NBA and its relationship with China. He posted support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong. NBA games were not shown on CCTV, China's state broadcaster, for one year after that since-deleted tweet.