Apparently, the NBA takes its tampering rules very seriously. According to the NBA bylaws, team executives are forbidden from contacting or recruiting players to their team until the free agency moratorium has ended. Unfortunately for the Lakers, Magic Johnson had to learn this the hard way.

In the off-season, the NBA fined the Lakers $500,000 for allegedly attempting to recruit Paul George. The league seemingly gathered all the evidence it needed to make the decision, and Johnson willingly paid the fine and apologized to the Lakers and the NBA. However, the NBA fined the Lakers again after Johnson praised Giannis Antetokounmpo, although Johnson didn’t mention anything about the Lakers or any sort of recruitment.

In order to clarify the league’s actions, NBA commissioner Adam Silver explained the league’s stance on tampering and how it related to Johnson’s particular incident, per ESPN’s Rachel Nichols.

“Context is everything, and there had been a prior issue with the Lakers early this season,” Silver said. “And the message is — not just to Magic but to all the executives in the league is — stop talking about players on other teams. We’d love to hear players like Magic Johnson talk about how great young players are in the league,” Silver said. “But there’s enough commentary out there. And I think, when on balance, just asking them to refrain from that one aspect of talking about other players, isn’t that big a deal.”

This is a weird explanation from Silver. Understandably, Johnson just gave his opinion on Antetokounmpo when he was asked the question. It truly doesn’t matter if this incident is a big deal or not, mainly because Johnson paid the price for a trivial comment. Though, this is the NBA’s stance and they are firmly sticking by it.