Thanks to a report from ESPN about the board of governors’ meetings earlier this month — just after the wildest NBA offseason ever — we know that there’s a lot of hand-wringing going on among the league’s owners over free-agent tampering.

Just look at what happened when the moratorium was lifted. Everyone mocked the rules and made tampering jokes when they saw reporters like Adrian Wojnarowski were breaking deals with full contract terms just minutes into the legal free agency period — even though teams were supposed to be barred up to that point from recruiting players and speaking with agents.

So how do you fix the problem that might have owners — particularly those who just saw their stars jump ship — alarmed?

The league could crack down more and enforce the rules it has in place, but as the ESPN report notes, NBA general counsel Rick Buchanan “asked the group if they were comfortable with the league ‘seizing servers and cellphones.'”

Nope. Next.

You also can’t somehow bar players from speaking with each other and conspiring to play together. That’s both ridiculous and impossible to police.

Here’s my idea, and it’s sort of inspired by something commissioner Adam Silver said on the subject (via the New York Times): “I think it’s pointless at the end of the day to have rules that we can’t enforce. I think it hurts the perception of integrity around the league.”

So how about we just get rid of the idea of tampering altogether?

If teams and agents are all communicating with each other at various times throughout the year and discuss free-agents-to-be or perhaps how a disgruntled player might want out, then just make a full-on free-for-all to fit where we’re at now.

There is an argument to be had that this is troublesome for small- and mid-market teams who might not have the same shot at signing free agents that others do like we saw this offseason. The Lakers, Clippers, Nets, Heat and Celtics were among the teams who nabbed the big stars, and that included Paul George forcing his way out of Oklahoma City just after signing a long-term contract with the Thunder a year ago.

But look at what Thunder general manager Sam Presti wrote on Thursday in a fantastic column for The Oklahoman:

Given the way the league’s system is designed, small market teams operate with significant disadvantages. There is no reason to pretend otherwise. This in no way means we cannot be extraordinarily successful — we, and several other small to mid-market teams, are our own best examples of the ability to overcome these realities. It simply means we must be thinking differently, optimistically, finding our advantages by other means.

What he said! Some of these teams like the Thunder are inevitably going to be the team that unearths incredible talent, attempts to win with those players and then watches them either walk or be traded. They might not be the destination for a superstar, sadly, and we know the supermax contract isn’t working the way it was supposed to. So there’s a level of acceptance here that Presti’s pointing out, and that comes along with, say, a free agent like Kawhi Leonard getting George to force a trade to come play with him in L.A. Find a way to build your team a different way — I point to what the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers did over the last few years and finally cemented this summer with some smart signings of non-superstar talent and good trades.

This solution also makes sure that the league doesn’t do anything to damage a free agency system that captivates fans like no other sport’s offseason. We refreshed Twitter for days on end as July began, watching as the league mutated by the minute and ended with parity, something the NBA hasn’t had in years.

Is it imperfect? Sure. But we’ve opened Pandora’s box with free agency. Players have most of the control and they’re not about to cede it. The next best thing is to simply accept the situation we’re in now and make it legal.

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