Hawks owner Michael Gearon has been fined $25,000 for making comments that violated the NBA's anti-tampering rules. The fine was announced by Joel Litvin, the president of league and basketball operations, and was the third handed down in recent days for violation of the rules. Gearon was fined for comments that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 19, when he said he'd be willing to subject the team to the luxury tax if it could sign Cleveland's LeBron James to a maximum contract. "If somebody came to us tomorrow and said you can have LeBron for max money and it puts you in the luxury tax, I'd do it in a heartbeat," Gearon told the newspaper on May 19. "But am I going to do that for [Zydrunas] Ilgauskas? Am I going to do it for Jermaine O'Neal? I don't think so . . . " http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5226298
