Post by Portland TrailBlazers on Apr 19, 2017 17:14:31 GMT 2
RFAs 101
RFA Process & Timeline for 2018
All rules & processes to remain unchanged for 2019 onwards, other than the specific dates noted.
RFA Bidding Period: July 21st 12:00 p.m. to July 23rd 12:00 p.m. (EEDT)
On July 17th, one member of the committee () will create the email account to be used for the RFA bidding process (email address TBA). He will submit his RFA bids via email to that email account on July 17th.
On July 18th, the other 4 members of the committee will submit their RFA bids. The member that created the account will then share the username/password details with the rest of the committee.
Starting July 19th at 12:00 p.m. (EEDT) until July 21st, the remaining 15 managers in the league will submit their RFA bids.
On July 22nd, all managers will receive an excel file containing all offers that were submitted for all RFAs. All managers will also receive the username/password access details to the email account. If a manager wants to check on whether all offers have been submitted and documented properly, will be able to login to the account and do so.
Using the above steps, the committee feels that maximum control and clarity are preserved throughout the process (crosschecking between managers and the committee, while all members will be able to see if steps and rules have been followed as agreed upon).
Managers owning the rights of an RFA will then have 24 hours to decide on matching the highest offer for those players. Matching an offer means, matching the exact contract duration and value. If no offer has been submitted on an RFA, the manager who owns the RFA player rights has the option to sign the player on a minimum contract (0.5 million/year). If no offer has been submitted on an RFA and the manager owning his rights decides not to sign him, the RFA becomes a UFA and will be part of the UFA bidding process.
RFA Bidding Process
On July 16th all managers will have access to an excel file that includes all RFAs.
The following info will be documented in the file:
Player Name
Team currently owning the player's RFA rights
Contract Offer (Total $ offer)
Years (contract years offered, 1 through 4)
Contract Offer/year (automatically calculated based on Contract Offer and Years)
Completing and Submitting the excel file
- When you open the file complete your team name from the drop-down list in cell B1.
The file will automatically update to show your available salary cap, available roster spots and, also, point out your own RFAs.
- Each manager should then fully complete the “Contract Offer” & “Years” columns for the RFAs he wants to submit a bid on. He will then send the file via email to the email account (as described above) within the designated deadline. The file should be renamed as follows: “YourTeamName”_RFA_Bids_2017
- No manager should submit a bid for an RFA they currently own the rights to. No comment needed here…
- The file should only be submitted/sent once by each manager. All bids submitted the first time are binding and if a manager sends a second email that includes RFA bids, the email will be discarded. If a manager fails to submit his bids within the RFA Bidding Period, then no bids will be taken into account on his behalf.
- Keep in mind that the tiebreaker for RFAs is available salary caps. To ensure a solid salary cap benchmark for the process, all trading and other dealings will be halted/paused on July 16th @ 12:00 p.m. (EEDT). The available salary caps for every team will be documented in the file and we will all know the tiebreaker status for all teams. Trading and other league processes will be resumed after the RFA process in concluded.
- Finally, you will see that the file keeps track of your available cap and available roster spots. If you exceed either, there will be a message in red in cells D34 and/or D35. If you submit your file including bids that exceed either your available offseason salary cap or your number of available roster spots, then all your bids will be voided and discarded from the process.
- The sum of bids submitted for RFAs cannot put any team above the offseason salary cap ($120.000.000)
- The total count of bids submitted for RFA's cannot put any team above the offseason maximum total count of contracts (21)
UFAs 101
UFA Process & Timeline 2018
All rules & processes to remain unchanged for 2018 onwards, other than the specific dates noted.
Timeline
Start Date: August 21st
End Date: October 13th
Committee and Forum set-up
UFA Groups: All UFAs will be broken down into 5 Groups (A, B, C, D, E) of equal or near-equal size.
Group Admins: Each committee member will be responsible to overview one UFA Group. Each Group will also be assigned a substitute Group Admin. If any manager wants to ask a question regarding a UFA, he should address the relative Group Admin via PM or email.
The full list of UFAs and the relative Groups & Admins will be announced soon.
Threads Set-up: Each UFA Group Admin will set up a new thread/message board titled Group A through E. Inside the message board the Admin will create one thread for each UFA in his group. All UFA bidding will be done in the UFA relative threads. No bids for a UFA will be accepted if posted in a different thread other than the specific player’s thread.
Thread content: The only acceptable content to be posted in the UFA threads is the relative manager bids. No comments, trash-talking or other related comments are allowed in the UFA player threads. Salary cap penalties will apply to those that will not respect this policy. For those notorious trash talkers that cannot keep their mouth shut, a separate thread will be made under the “Bullshit Talk” board to accept comments on the UFA bidding process.
Bidding
Bid Format: All Bids should follow the following format “BiddingTeamName_TotalBid_Years”. Example, Brooklyn wants to give Jeremiah Dickhead a 4-year contract worth 15mil, the bid should look like:
Brooklyn_15,000,000_4
Do not include any yearly salaries or yearly salaries references in your posts. The yearly salary for each bid is irrelevant to the process.
Bid Succession: Every bid should be higher than the previous one by $500,000 with regards to total value. The number of years is irrelevant. Continuing on the previous example for Jeremiah Dickhead:
1st bid: Brooklyn_15,000,000_4
2nd bid: Toronto_16,000,000_3
3rd bid: Dallas_16,500,000_4
4th bid: Memphis_19,000,000_2
5th bid: Portland_20,000,000_3
And so on and so forth…
Voided Bids: If a bid is not higher than the previous one (in total value) it will be voided.
Deleted/Edited Bids: You are not allowed to delete or edit a submitted bid. All posts/bids are binding. As simple as that…
Decision Making
Threads & Timestamps: The decision on which manager gets which player will be made solely based on the timestamps of the posts in each UFA’s thread.
Winning Bids: If 24 hours pass from the last bid submitted in a UFA thread, then the player is automatically assigned/signed to the manager that submitted the bid. All decisions will be based on timestamps in the relative player threads. The decision will be announced by the relative Group Admin in the relative thread. Once a decision has been made and a player is assigned to his new team, his UFA thread will be locked.
Timeline Adjustments and Tiebreakers: When the process reaches October 1st, the 24-hour winning bid threshold will be decreased to a 12-hour winning bid threshold. In the unlikely scenario where players still have outstanding bids at midnight of October 13th, all managers that submitted a bid for that player starting October 12th (48 hours before the deadline) will be allowed to submit one final bid for the player via email to the UFA’s relative Group Admin, on October 14th. The Group admin will open the final bids on October 15th and the highest total bid gets the player. In the extreme scenario where the Group Admin is part of the bidding process for the player, then a substitute Group Admin will overview the final bidding process. For 2018, the tiebreaker for 2 equal final winning bids will be the available cap space (same as the RFA process). Moving forward (starting in 2019), the tiebreaker will favor the team that finished lower in the league standings the year before.
Bidding Restrictions
As in the RFA process, there are 2 important limitations when a manager submits his bids, available offseason cap space and available offseason squad size. Each manager is responsible for knowing his available offseason cap space at all times and the sum of his active bids* should not exceed his available offseason salary cap space. Same goes for the number of players signed during the offseason (max number is 21). If manager has X active contracts in his team, he is only allowed to have 21 minus X active bids at all times.
Any violation of the above restrictions will result in salary cap penalties.
1st Violation - 1M cap fine
2nd Violation- 3M cap fine
3rd Violation - 5M cap fine
*Active bid: a bid that at the time is the highest offer for a player. If another manager submits a higher bid for the player, he claims the active bid tag and the previous bid becomes inactive.
Free Agency during the Regular Season
All Waived players follow the rules mentioned in the relative Waiver Wire posts.
All Free Agents (players that are not under contract during the regular season, waived or simply Free Agents) can be offered the minimum of $0.5mil for the remaining of the current/running season (1-year contract) and all managers will have the opportunity to bid for the same player for the next 24 hours but the initial bidder will retain the right of matching the last offer. No 2+ year contracts are allowed for on-season Free Agent signings.
Here is an example of the process that will be followed:
Manager A posts a claim for a FA.
All managers (except manager A) can bid for him for the next 24 hours (the same way bids for UFAs happen)
At the end of the 24 hour window Manager A will be presented with the opportunity to match the winning bid (the highest bid)
If he matches the offer he retains the player and if not the player goes to the higher bidder.
The player will then become a UFA at the end of the current/running season and his owner will have the right to offer him a 5th year with his new contract (given that the player is on the owner team’s roster on the last day of the regular season).
Additionally, the owners of in-season signings DO NOT gain any bird rights that will allow them to resign them in the next offseason by offering 5 years instead of 4.
Here is an example of the process that will be followed:
Manager A posts a claim for a FA.
All managers (except manager A) can bid for him for the next 24 hours (the same way bids for UFAs happen)
At the end of the 24 hour window Manager A will be presented with the opportunity to match the winning bid (the highest bid)
If he matches the offer he retains the player and if not the player goes to the higher bidder.
The player will then become a UFA at the end of the current/running season and his owner will have the right to offer him a 5th year with his new contract (given that the player is on the owner team’s roster on the last day of the regular season).
Additionally, the owners of in-season signings DO NOT gain any bird rights that will allow them to resign them in the next offseason by offering 5 years instead of 4.
Let me give an example to avoid any confusion:
Thanasis Antetokounmpo (currently a free agent) or Brandon Knight (after being waived by Portland) gets signed by Atlanta on a $0.5m/1 year deal. After the season ends both of them become Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) and everyone can offer them a contract of up to 4 years (Atlanta WON’T be able to offer 5 years instead because they signed him during the season)