What Drake probably thought was innocent fun ended up costing his team $25,000. At his highly popular OVO Fest, Drake tried to “recruit” Oklahoma City star Kevin Durant to Toronto. As the Raptors Global Brand Ambassador this violated the league’s rules against tampering since Durant will not be a free agent until 2016. According to this source, the NBA was willing to drop the fine if the Raptors dropped Drake.
[Raptors officials] refused to address a key detail – that the NBA offered to drop the tampering fine if the team agreed to strip Drake of his title. The Raptors apparently refused.
$25K is clearly a drop in the bucket compared to what Drake’s affiliation with the Raptors is worth. The league wanting the Raptors to drop Drake doesn’t make sense to me considering they’re all about raising the profit margins and Drake certainly brings in more revenue to the Raptors. In the story however it discusses another issue, conspiracy theories surrounding the NBA’s tampering rules and their posturing.
You can read more in Cathal Kelly’s column.
