Warriors owner Joe Lacob fined after comments regarding NBA’s collective bargaining, luxury tax system

The NBA is handing a $500,000 fine against Golden State Warriors majority owner Joe Lacob, sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The penalty comes after Lacob recently provided personal comments in the Point Forward podcast of Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner regarding the league’s collective bargaining, criticizing the luxury tax system and describing it as “very unfair.”

“The truth is, we’re only $40 million more than the luxury tax,” Lacob said, per NBC Sports’ Ali Thanawalla. “Now, that’s not small but it’s not a massive number. We’re $200 million over in total because most of that is this incredible penal luxury tax. And what I consider to be unfair and I’m going to say it on this podcast and I hope it gets back to whoever is listening … and obviously it’s self-serving for me to say this, but I think it’s a very unfair system because our team is built by — all top eight players are all drafted by this team.”

Further noted by Wojnarowski, the association is restricting team owners and officials from making “unauthorized communications regarding collective bargaining.”

With an over the line paying of $176 million for all of their players within the last season’s roster, the Warriors gave up $170M for tax purposes – accumulating for a whopping $346 million total spending.