NBA Inadvertently Fined Hawks $100k For Allowing Trae Young To Celebrate His Daughter’s First Birthday

The NBA has never shied away from fining players and teams when they deem it to be necessary. When it comes to Trae Young missing the Hawks’ In-Season Tournament game on November 12^th against the Boston Celtics, the league dished out an exorbitant amount. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported a ‘loss’ of $100,000 for this violation.

The In-Season Tournament was a massive success in its inaugural 2023-24 season. Competitiveness was up along with ratings and fans were pleased with how regular season games were given more importance. The $500,000 incentive to hoist the NBA Cup in Las Vegas was enough for players to give these games new meaning.

So, when it was announced the Hawks would be fined for sitting their star player on an NBA Cup night, it made sense. However, looking at the reason for why he sat out reveals a deeper story.

It was hypothesized that Young missed the game due to his daughter, Teal Dove’s, first birthday celebration. This is due to him posting about her birth on November 13^th, 2023 and so it doesn’t take much to put two and two together.

Costing your team $100,000 at any moment is a tough blow. In this particular situation though, it is more than warranted. The NBA, while they are strictly trying to implement their ‘player participation policy’, should be more situational at times as a child’s first birthday is more important than a game in the middle of November.

The NBA has been dishing out fines quite regularly

The 2024-25 season over 20% of the way done for most teams and players across the league have had to carry the burden of hefty fines. LaMelo Ball is the perfect example of this as he was fined $100,000 recently.

This is as much as the Hawks, an entire organization, was fined. It came about due to him using a phrase that isn’t particularly appreciated by a certain community and could also be considered homophobic.

Anthony Edwards and Fred VanVleet both lost $35,000 and $50,000, respectively, due to crass gestures and/or language. Edwards flipped off a fan while VanVleet unloaded a bevy of expletives towards refs.

The fines aren’t limited to players of course. Kings head coach, Mike Brown, crossed the half-court line on the sidelines and stormed towards officials in a fit of rage. He was fined $35,000 for this outburst as his behavior was deemed to be threatening.

Safe to say that Joe Dumars and the league aren’t afraid to dig deep into players, coaches, and teams’ pockets when it comes to punishment.