However, it's been far longer since we looked at the basics of RFA, in-season extensions, and maximum years. Note that the below is a lot of interlocking parts; I don't think a partial implementation would be desirable. This wouldn't necessarily take effect immediately; it could be planned to be phased in "2 or 3 seasons from now."
1. Increase maximum contract length to 6 years for all contract offers (Bird Rights no longer provide the option for an extra year).
2. Option years are only permitted on contracts that are 4+ years in length (no more "2 year contracts with a team option that we all know darn well are 1 year deals but the game is too stupid to recognize this").
3. Now that everyone has nodes, allow in-season extensions with the caveat that you may not negotiate - you must accept the player's demands (with the nodes, you will be able to see who is willing to extend so no extra work on the commissioner's part; however, you post that you are extending in the forums and the commissioner does the accepting on the main PC rather than have you send the acceptance through TeamViewer to make sure no negotiation is being done). One player per season per team may be extended in this manner to keep the free agent pool somewhat full.
4. No longer are rookie contracts "4 years plus RFA." Instead, prior to the third year of a rookie deal, you must choose whether to exercise the 4th year option.
- If you choose NOT to exercise the 4th year option, you may extend the player through accepting his in-season demands (see point #3).
- If the player does not give you the opportunity to extend, he becomes an RFA at the end of the 3rd year (see point 5 below).
- If the player offers you the option to extend and you choose not to accept his terms, at the end of the 3rd year, the player becomes a UFA.
- If you do choose to exercise the (cheap) 4th year option, he becomes a UFA at the end of the 4th year unless he is willing to extend in the 4th year (i.e., you take the gamble he will not be willing to re-sign).
- a list of RFAs is published prior to round one of Free Agency
- If an RFA is signed away from his incumbent team, the incumbent team may reclaim that player if they still have space under the salary cap (i.e., after accounting for their own signings) OR they may claim any first round pick that belongs to the signing team and currently shows in the index. Note that the incumbent team may also choose to take a pick even if they have sufficient cap space to take the player back.
- A team's pick may be claimed in this manner even if doing so would cause that team to have multiple consecutive future years with no first round picks (i.e., can violate the Stepien Rule).
- If the signing team signed multiple RFAs, the order in which they signed is the order in which RFA claims against them are processed. In other words, the team from whom they signed a player first gets first option to retain the player or claim a draft pick instead.
- If a team has no first round picks available in the index, the "next first round pick that appears" is claimed (e.g., if the Hawks sign an RFA from the Bucks in 2025 but the Hawks have already traded away their 2026, 2027, and 2028 picks (or if those picks were claimed by teams that the Hawks had signed other RFAs from), the Bucks would be entitled to the Hawks' 2029 pick as soon as it appears in the index. (A thread for this purpose would be easy enough to use to track).
- The "reclaiming" of a player or the "claiming of a first round pick" in this manner will be done via the "Force Trade" admin option so that all transactions are logged (instead of now where RFA contracts do not appear in a player's transaction history page).
7. Waiver Claims are slightly altered - since everyone has access to a node, everyone has access to "vet min" players - those Free Agents that will accept the vet min. Attempts to claim players that will NOT accept a vet min are now done via node (submitting bids on the player) and you must have cap space (including MLE money) to attempt this. Those players will not be available until the sim AFTER you attempt to claim them from waivers (since it is "sim day" that causes them to choose a bid from among all available bids). This means the commissioner no longer has to manually edit all those waiver claims.
8. OPTIONAL: Due to the extra contract length having the potential to handicap a team long-term, a team that gets a new owner may be allowed the chance to amnesty one contract upon taking the reins of a team.
ANTICIPATED EFFECTS OF THIS PROPOSAL:
1. By re-enabling in-season negotiations, some random chance is re-added in that some players will be willing to extend and others will not. While there is a factor of luck involved there, there is also a factor of luck involved when 10 teams put a max offer on the same free agent. Knowing that a player is unwilling to sign an extension should be an incentive to a GM to deal him away, which will help the trade market.
2. Allowing longer contracts - and removing the ability to tack option years on to short contracts - forces teams to commit more solidly to players long-term. Fully half the league generally has cap space to offer the max every single off-season; this is not desirable. It's too many teams bidding on too few free agents, which pushes salaries way up. The ability to offer multiple max deals should not be an "every single offseason for a decade" thing for most teams; having multiple max deals available should involve quite a bit of planning.
3. Forcing teams to "make a decision" on rookies earlier (while they are still raw) puts additional emphasis on training. Since we have insurance to protect rookie potentials, a decision to extend a promising rookie after just 3 seasons - even 5 more years - shouldn't bite most teams.
4. Restructuring RFA to fit it more seamlessly with UFA means we no longer have to track cap holds, etc. It also means that there is significant risk in signing an RFA (due to the possible loss of draft picks) which means RFAs are likely to see more reasonable deals (i.e., no more "make them pay" and driving prices up with maxes to everyone with a pulse).
5. Allowing extensions and making RFA more risky for non-incumbents probably spreads out the level of deals to make us less of a min/max league. In addition, longer contracts will result in fewer teams each season having the cap space available to be big free agent players, but also gives teams a sense of security - at present if you're lucky enough for your 4-year max with player option to pry a star away from his team, you have to start worrying you're going to lose that player just 2 seasons later (when he enters the final guaranteed year). By upping the contract length to 6 years, it lets you be stable with your superstar.
6. By spreading around contract amounts, we avoid the current problem of quality players being either on one-year deals, rookie deals, or max deals - and thus extremely difficult to move. The trade market gets greased a little bit when there are more options - for example, right now it's almost impossible to trade one quality player for two players - they'll all be on maxes. With more gradation in contract amounts, possibilities open up.
If people have feedback to improve this suggestion, I'm very open to it.
