Q:

Tampering with players

When a team executive apparently influences a player from another team to join them without prior knowledge or permission to that player's current team, it's considered tampering, and teams have been fined for this in the past.
In the most recent cases like Lebron James and Paul George, if an upcoming free agent is contacted by another team to convince the player to sign with them, is this still considered tampering?

A:

July 1 is when teams can begin negotiating with free agents.
Teams cannot contact a player under contract nor their agent. The player must be a free agent.
Not even supposed to talk to the press about wanting a player.  Forget who it was but I think it was Doc Rivers commented a player was good and would be a good fit on his team.  Not sure if he got fined or the league just told that pushes tampering and don't do it any more.
If a player has a player option but they have not yet declined the player option I am not sure.  

