This seems like the logical penalty for tampering. If you tamper with a player, you're simply forbidden from signing or trading for that player for X years. It would be the ideal incentive for both the player and the teams not to go down that road.
Compare this to the 1995 Heat tampering with New York City simply by talking to freaking Pat Riley (not even a player)....Knicks not only got a freaking FRP, but $1m back then would be $1.5m (three times the Lakers fine) From Larry Coon's FAQ The Miami Heat were discovered to have tampered with Pat Riley in 1995 by negotiating with Riley while he was the head coach of the New York Knicks. The Heat "settled," and avoided league-imposed penalties, by compensating the Knicks with $1 million and their first round draft pick in 1996.
This is from the NBA Constitution wrt possible penalties The Constitution also says that potential penalties for tampering include "suspension of the offending person, prohibition of the offending team from hiring the person being tampered with, forfeiture of draft picks, and individual and/or team fines of up to $5 million."
What a joke. The NBA did the Lakers a favor by first just giving them a warning. Then, the Lakers violate the rules anyway and get a light slap on the wrist.
The Lakers deserve this good fortune. They had their CP3 trade unfairly vetoed by David Stern back in the day so this is good karma for them. Keep in mind that if CP3 to LAL trade goes down, we wouldn't have CP3 on the Rockets this year.
The Bucks would never get more than 500K for such a thing. Los Angeles pulls strings around the league for the Bucks organization. They've been so thankful to that city for gifting them their organization's new home and the most total championships for a franchise in NBA history that they use their evil powers to protect the Bucks. Oh, that's Minneapolis not Milwaukee... damn.. fail. Can I talk about Jabbar instead?
With everyone saying this is obviously preferential treatment for the Lakers, is there even a comparable example in recent history to compare against? The Pat Riley signing in Miami looks to be the only relevant case, but he actually signed with the Heat; here the issue is just improper contact with the player's agent.