It is no secret that Daryl Morey is an admirer of James Harden.
Despite this, the NBA announced on Monday that a recent tweet that Morey deleted about the 2017-18 NBA MVP violated his anti-tampering rule, fining the president of basketball operations for Sixers $ 50,000.
Below is Morey’s tweet in question. It appears to be an automatic acknowledgment of Harden breaking the record for assisting the Rockets franchise on December 20 last year.
Indeed, ESPN’s Adrian WojnarowskI report that Morey told the NBA that it was an automated tweet and an “inadvertent posting”.
Harden would like to be traded to the Rockets and the Sixers are among the teams with an interest. Perhaps this explains the strict application of the anti-tampering rule, although it seems clear that Morey’s tweet was innocuous and was not intended to be a blatant public attempt to get Harden to Philadelphia.
It’s not like Harden or the Rockets need to be reminded that he is the auxiliary leader in the franchise, and there is no apparent way to make this benefit the Sixers. Morey also said much more complimentary things about Harden in the past, during his eight years with the Rockets.
However, everything related to Harden is under intense scrutiny at the moment, and Twitter feeds are evidently no exception.