For quite a while now, we’ve had armchair basketball general managers looking forward to the potential crop of free agents to hit the market in 2010.

Honestly, the amount of talk generated on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ recent trip to New York surrounding LeBron James future employment opportunities was downright embarrassing.

Now, that talked has worked it’s way west, right here to the Valley. Suns forward Amare Stoudemire recently took time from his busy ‘complaining about his role’ schedule, to say he’s looking forward to being one of the league’s sought-after free agents in 2010.

“Absolutely! You have to look at those opportunities, because this is a business and you want to explore every option. I guarantee you every owner will explore their options, especially when a player’s contract is up. So it’s the same for players. It’s definitely the same for me.” – Amare Stoudemire when asked if he thinks about becoming a big-money free agent in 2010.

Stoudemire talks about owners exploring their options, and he’s right, they will. But the league mandates that those same owners can’t even talk about exploring their options until June of 2010. Otherwise, they get hit with the ugly charge of tampering, which carries severe financial penalties.

Do you think your employer would like you openly discussing where you’ll be in two years? How about your wife? Do you think she would understand that you’re just keeping your options open for the future? Why can’t players who openly discuss impending free agency, which is still a season and a half away, be hit with tampering charges? They’re not exactly showing loyalty to the owner, franchise, teammates and fans in the city they’re in now.

I know that a lot of these discussions begin with questions from an unrelenting, and always-growing media. But in this, the age of information, those questions could easily be traced back to whoever asked them, meaning, they could pay a penalty as well.

There’s nothing I’d like to see more than Stephen A. Smith get slapped…with a fine.