UFA bids: My S71 Playbook
Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 4:33 pm
Greetings, fellow GMs! Now that I am unburdened by counting memes and words, and maintaining spreadsheets to ensure people aren’t just giving themselves media points they didn’t earn, or ensure the slimiest of GMs are properly capped, etc., I have some free time on my hands.
So!
What better way to utilize this time than to overanalyze my UFA Rd 1 bids?! I am sure I go through a mental process not too dissimilar from others, and I am essentially opening up my playbook to a disadvantageous extent, but I don’t care. Doug’s going to win again anyways.
UFA is a beast of uncertainty. A strategy that worked last year might have failed this year. A strat that failed last year might succeed this year, and so on. Evaluating a good bid vs. a bad bid is probably a bad way to look at UFA. There are bad bids, to be sure, like anyone trying to take Markkannen or PeeWee from Doug, because these players would not leave if Doug paid them, but conversely, I was a three-time finals team, missing a third ‘ship by one game, and Doug stole my favorite player, Fabian Hub, with a bid worse than mine. Doug’s arguably bad bid paid off many seasons ago, so you really never know.
I have done this for over 30 seasons now, so I feel like I can shed some light on strategy, as a 2-time champion vet, for our new crop of GMs.
So here goes. These were my bids:
Jaden Akins; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Delmer Bricker; max; 7.5%; 4yr; player option
Mikal Bridges; min
Jaylen Forbes; min
Colton Johnson; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Jason Marotta; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Joseph Morelock; $19,696,969; 1yr (early bird rights)
Bryon Nelson; $25,750,306; 5%; 3yr; player option (MLE)
Jordan Poole; min
Michael Truman; min
A couple of things worth noting to my UFA approach:
DELMER BRICKER http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player69.htm
Not only was Bricker my best player last year, his player page is player69. Nice.
Bricker came to Golden State by way of A’ja Wilson leaving for Phoenix. In terms of active players on my roster from the season prior, Bricker replaced Hershal Gilmore, who sucked. Maybe Gilmore doesn’t suck now - I don’t know, I don’t care, but for me, he sucked. Anyway, sending out a stellar prospect like A’ja for Bricker was a long term plan, and if I did not secure Bricker in Free Agency, I would probably need to consider rebuilding my roster from scratch and sell assets and definitely avoid any repeater tax.
So, I offered Bricker as much as I could without offering a 5th year. I could have offered a 5th year team option and essentially it would have been the same thing, but I think sim players have hard ons for player options. So I went with that instead.
JOSEPH MORELOCK http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player321.htm
This guy made $4.3m last year and he was the 6th man of the year. How could I accurately decide how the rest of the league valued this player? He did not appear on the desired contracts list, thankfully, which made me think he would be undervalued by GMs at large. Either no one remembered him or I would be outbid by an MLE bidder for his services anyway, so I didn’t feel the need to use the full early bird rights cap of $23m and some change.
There were two other possibilities in signing him, though: 1) he would die in TC and he’d be dead cap on my roster, or 2) he would die in TC and I would be able to use his salary in a trade for a better player. So, I didn’t want to bid too high, nor too low, either.
MLE and vet min bids
This is always the most difficult part, figuring out who is worth a bid that is not returning to my squad from last season. The first consideration would be desired contracts, because they’re laid out on a platter for us and provide very valuable info. More importantly, in my opinion, is evaluating the player’s last season on their last team:
We’ll start with my mins:
Mikal Bridges http://pbsl.ijbl.net/2059/players/player181.htm
Mikal is old and green. In today’s PBSL, not many people see value there. However, he still has B currents in INS, 3PS, PRD and STL, and a 74 JMP. He’s certainly going to tank in TC, like he did the previous year, but if he loses a lot of JMP and STA, for example, that’s not a huge hindrance on how he would serve me. He’s slow, might lose even more QKN, but he could still lock down the perimeter off the bench and maybe knock down a few shots, too.
Based on his well-roundedness and likelihood of TC death, I figured I could get him without much trouble. Other teams making the same bid in this round is less likely because there are better players to target with 10 bids.
Jaylen Forbes http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player233.htm
This guy is as fake blue as they come, in my opinion. He thinks he’s worth $105m over 3 seasons, but he’s not worth my severed dick.
But, he is blue, somehow.
Jordan Poole http://pbsl.ijbl.net/2059/players/player303.htm
At 33yrs old, I thought Poole had a good chance of being overlooked / undervalued for a PG. There are other options out there, but for what I needed, Poole would be the best option, and I would not have been surprised if he showed up in Rd 2 unsigned because he only got vet min offers, or others struck out by overpaying him like $50m just to have a serviceable PG, but lost their cap space first, canceling their bid. Like all bids above, though, I could be totally wrong.
Michael Truman http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player802.htm
More interesting than all the above, though, are MLE targets. Like I said earlier, there’s little to no sense targeting Lauri Markkanen or Sion James, let alone with MLE contracts. In fact, just about everyone on that first screen cap of desired contracts is an absolute waste of time with MLE. Sim is a weird thing, though, and you just never know. So I took a swing at one of them:
Jaden Akins http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player131.htm
So let’s go there next.
Colton Johnson http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player756.htm
Across 26 GMs, potentially 250 some bids, and less than 50 blue currents, it was likely others saw a 28yr old b/b player and felt, hey, this guy is a great target, but he didn’t have a lot of floor time to convince anyone of intrinsic value. I do believe that any team picking him up at MLE or slightly above got tremendous value in signing Colton Johnson. And I knew he wouldn’t be returning to the Raps, who had no higher (legal) bid than my MLE.
When I submitted my bids, I figured if Penny didn’t target Akins, he would target Colton. If he didn’t target Colton, he would target Akins. I didn’t think he would target both, though, because his cap sitch could be dire with two huge contracts, but I did not consider Penny’s inability to outbid others’ MLE on Johnson. We all make mistakes.
Bryon Nelson http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player508.htm
Jason Marotta http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player505.htm
So that’s it! That’s my UFA. I hope you enjoyed it and learned from it, or learned what NOT to do as the case may be. How was your UFA? Post in the comments if you feel so inclined. Cheers!
So!
What better way to utilize this time than to overanalyze my UFA Rd 1 bids?! I am sure I go through a mental process not too dissimilar from others, and I am essentially opening up my playbook to a disadvantageous extent, but I don’t care. Doug’s going to win again anyways.
UFA is a beast of uncertainty. A strategy that worked last year might have failed this year. A strat that failed last year might succeed this year, and so on. Evaluating a good bid vs. a bad bid is probably a bad way to look at UFA. There are bad bids, to be sure, like anyone trying to take Markkannen or PeeWee from Doug, because these players would not leave if Doug paid them, but conversely, I was a three-time finals team, missing a third ‘ship by one game, and Doug stole my favorite player, Fabian Hub, with a bid worse than mine. Doug’s arguably bad bid paid off many seasons ago, so you really never know.
I have done this for over 30 seasons now, so I feel like I can shed some light on strategy, as a 2-time champion vet, for our new crop of GMs.
So here goes. These were my bids:
Jaden Akins; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Delmer Bricker; max; 7.5%; 4yr; player option
Mikal Bridges; min
Jaylen Forbes; min
Colton Johnson; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Jason Marotta; $25,750,306; 1yr (MLE)
Joseph Morelock; $19,696,969; 1yr (early bird rights)
Bryon Nelson; $25,750,306; 5%; 3yr; player option (MLE)
Jordan Poole; min
Michael Truman; min
A couple of things worth noting to my UFA approach:
- I’m entering my 2nd year of repeater tax, and already had expensive players signed for years ahead.
- I had one player with full bird rights I had to bring back at all costs, Delmer Bricker.
- I had one player with early bird rights I wanted back, but I also risked a TC death and didn’t want to pay too much, Joseph Morelock (reigning 6th man of the year).
- I needed to get better and targeted the best player(s) I could with my MLE - my only chance to secure a decent player not returning to their incumbent team, and bid on 4 to increase my chances of securing one.
- Otherwise, my only options were vet mins.
DELMER BRICKER http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player69.htm
Not only was Bricker my best player last year, his player page is player69. Nice.
Bricker came to Golden State by way of A’ja Wilson leaving for Phoenix. In terms of active players on my roster from the season prior, Bricker replaced Hershal Gilmore, who sucked. Maybe Gilmore doesn’t suck now - I don’t know, I don’t care, but for me, he sucked. Anyway, sending out a stellar prospect like A’ja for Bricker was a long term plan, and if I did not secure Bricker in Free Agency, I would probably need to consider rebuilding my roster from scratch and sell assets and definitely avoid any repeater tax.
So, I offered Bricker as much as I could without offering a 5th year. I could have offered a 5th year team option and essentially it would have been the same thing, but I think sim players have hard ons for player options. So I went with that instead.
JOSEPH MORELOCK http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player321.htm
This guy made $4.3m last year and he was the 6th man of the year. How could I accurately decide how the rest of the league valued this player? He did not appear on the desired contracts list, thankfully, which made me think he would be undervalued by GMs at large. Either no one remembered him or I would be outbid by an MLE bidder for his services anyway, so I didn’t feel the need to use the full early bird rights cap of $23m and some change.
There were two other possibilities in signing him, though: 1) he would die in TC and he’d be dead cap on my roster, or 2) he would die in TC and I would be able to use his salary in a trade for a better player. So, I didn’t want to bid too high, nor too low, either.
MLE and vet min bids
This is always the most difficult part, figuring out who is worth a bid that is not returning to my squad from last season. The first consideration would be desired contracts, because they’re laid out on a platter for us and provide very valuable info. More importantly, in my opinion, is evaluating the player’s last season on their last team:
- Are they going to be competitive this season?
- What is their cap situation?
- What was this player’s previous contract value?
- Do they have bird rights?
We’ll start with my mins:
Mikal Bridges http://pbsl.ijbl.net/2059/players/player181.htm
Mikal is old and green. In today’s PBSL, not many people see value there. However, he still has B currents in INS, 3PS, PRD and STL, and a 74 JMP. He’s certainly going to tank in TC, like he did the previous year, but if he loses a lot of JMP and STA, for example, that’s not a huge hindrance on how he would serve me. He’s slow, might lose even more QKN, but he could still lock down the perimeter off the bench and maybe knock down a few shots, too.
- Bridges’ last team: Grizzlies
- Grizzlies competitiveness: possible
- Grizzlies cap sitch: Enough cap to not need to go after this guy for salary for a big trade, at least in UFA Rd 1
- Bridges’ previous contract: $93m
- Bird rights? Yes
Based on his well-roundedness and likelihood of TC death, I figured I could get him without much trouble. Other teams making the same bid in this round is less likely because there are better players to target with 10 bids.
Jaylen Forbes http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player233.htm
This guy is as fake blue as they come, in my opinion. He thinks he’s worth $105m over 3 seasons, but he’s not worth my severed dick.
But, he is blue, somehow.
- Forbes last team: Hawks
- Hawks competitiveness: n/a
- Hawks cap sitch: $112m
- Forbes last contract: $40m
- Bird rights? Yes
Jordan Poole http://pbsl.ijbl.net/2059/players/player303.htm
At 33yrs old, I thought Poole had a good chance of being overlooked / undervalued for a PG. There are other options out there, but for what I needed, Poole would be the best option, and I would not have been surprised if he showed up in Rd 2 unsigned because he only got vet min offers, or others struck out by overpaying him like $50m just to have a serviceable PG, but lost their cap space first, canceling their bid. Like all bids above, though, I could be totally wrong.
- Poole’s last team: Kings
- Kings competitiveness: possibly, but Super Dog is so absent it’s hard to say whether he cared about Poole or not.
- Kings cap sitch: $74m
- Poole's last contract: $70m
- Bird rights? No
Michael Truman http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player802.htm
- Truman’s last team: Pissies
- Pissies competitiveness: Doug could ghost this season like Super Dog and still win it all
- Pissies cap sitch: $90m, but deep in repeater tax land with other expensive players to re-sign
- Truman’s last contract: min, or of comparable value to min
- Bird rights? No, not yet
____________________________________
More interesting than all the above, though, are MLE targets. Like I said earlier, there’s little to no sense targeting Lauri Markkanen or Sion James, let alone with MLE contracts. In fact, just about everyone on that first screen cap of desired contracts is an absolute waste of time with MLE. Sim is a weird thing, though, and you just never know. So I took a swing at one of them:
Jaden Akins http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player131.htm
- Akins’ last team: Raptors
- Raptors’ competitiveness: great question, will elaborate
- Raptors’ cap sitch: $17m in the red, facing 2nd yr repeater
- Akins’ last contract: $97.7m
- Bird rights? Big time yes
So let’s go there next.
Colton Johnson http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player756.htm
- Johnson’s last contract: $5.3m
- Bird rights? Early bird rights
- All other stats same as Akins
Across 26 GMs, potentially 250 some bids, and less than 50 blue currents, it was likely others saw a 28yr old b/b player and felt, hey, this guy is a great target, but he didn’t have a lot of floor time to convince anyone of intrinsic value. I do believe that any team picking him up at MLE or slightly above got tremendous value in signing Colton Johnson. And I knew he wouldn’t be returning to the Raps, who had no higher (legal) bid than my MLE.
When I submitted my bids, I figured if Penny didn’t target Akins, he would target Colton. If he didn’t target Colton, he would target Akins. I didn’t think he would target both, though, because his cap sitch could be dire with two huge contracts, but I did not consider Penny’s inability to outbid others’ MLE on Johnson. We all make mistakes.
Bryon Nelson http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player508.htm
- Nelson’s last team: Wizards
- Wizards’ competitiveness: 2nd best in the league last year, I would imagine they remain competitive
- Wizards’ cap sitch: $78m in the red before UFA, entering 2nd year repeater tax
- Nelson’s’ last contract: $19.3m
- Bird rights? yes
Jason Marotta http://pbsl.ijbl.net/players/player505.htm
- Marotta’s last team: Pissies
- Pissies’ competitiveness: champ no matter what
- Pissies cap sitch: dire
- Marotta’s last contract: $19m flat
- Bird rights? Yes
So that’s it! That’s my UFA. I hope you enjoyed it and learned from it, or learned what NOT to do as the case may be. How was your UFA? Post in the comments if you feel so inclined. Cheers!
