Free Agency Proposal

[Silogical]

If anyone wants to take the time to develop a new FA system, please generate a detailed proposal of how the system would operate with timelines on how long the system would take to run through FA compared to our current DDS system (16 real life days) and the time required from those involved.

Present it to the league and we can gather feedback in this same setting to see if its something that's possible for future seasons.

A rough draft with plenty of room for tweaking. the end goal is an agent system, but operated in the open on the forums. The agents job is to get people to submit offers on their players.

Free Agency System

Goals:
Realistic/No penalties for people not in the same time zone as the organizers/Transparent/100% formula driven

CSL CBA
All rules from the CSL CBA still apply with one exception see RFA rules 1)

Bidding:
All Free agency threads will be open for 1 day. No matter what time zone you are in you should be able to check into the auction.
4 players will "seek to sign a contract" per day for 16 days (64 players). The threads will be opened 1 hr apart from each other. So we have a definite order on who will be signing first.
Day 17-20 will go to DDS. It will be mostly minimum salary players left. Using agents to sign these players feels like a waste of time.
You cannot place a bid without the cap room. So if you have a bid somewhere else you have to wait until someone out bids you. This includes if you have a pending high bid on an RFA. NBA teams have the same issue with tied up cap on RFAs it is part of the strategy involved in the FA system.
The minimum raise on bids is 15% (can be modified to 10%)

The process:
The 1st 10 minutes of a thread opening is a free for all. Everyone who wants to can post their offer The 15% minimum raise limit does not apply. GM’s that wont be online but want to post in the 10 minute free for all can PM an agent and they can post on their behalf.
After the 10 minute free for all an agent will calculate the ***scores and determine which is the leading bid
For the next 23-24 hours GM’s will place bids and an agent will adjust the bid so it is a 15% increase over the last bid. They will also make sure the bid is legal.
A full max offer including PO does not need to beat the previous bid by 15% it only needs to beat the previous bid.
With this system there is no advantage to submitting a bid early or late.

Offers
Offers cannot be retracted or edited
Only 1 offer is allowed per thread. Make sure to get your best offer in.

Order of players auctioned
The order will be determined by the agents. It will be a rough guess as to the value of the player. The most valuable players going 1st. Due to ***delayed prosessing the order isnt important to the GM’s.

***Delayed processing
In the NBA teams and players agree to contracts and delay processing. This can also be done in CSL. If you have the highest bid on a player you can delay the processing up to the end of Free Agency.

General Free Agency rules
GM’s can sign immediately or delay processing

RFA rules
A decision whether they will sign the player or not must be made within 48 hours of the players thread opening. 1) (24 hours after the winning bid is officially determined)

S&T rules
Home teams can S&T if they win the bid. (S&T must have been agreed to before the auctioned ended)
When a bid is being placed as part of a sign and trade S&T must be mentioned in the bid along with the team the player will be traded to so the agents know which team to use to calculate the ***score.
The ***score used will be for the team the player is being signed and traded too.

Calculating the ***scores
Average salary of guaranteed years x Multipliers

Multipliers:

Team Option .94
Player Option if the player will be 31 or younger when the Player option is due 1.04
Player Option if the player will be 32 when the Player option is due 1.02
Player Option if the player will be 33 or older when the Player option is due 1.00 ( no benefit to giving an old player a player option)

Contract length:
1 year = .9
2 years = .95
3 years = 1
4+ years = 1.05
(team option years do not count towards contract length)

Offering long-term contracts to old players
If the guaranteed contract ends when the player is (x) years old:
33 = 1.02
34 = 1.06
35 = 1.12
36 = 1.25
37+ = 1.5

Loyalty and Greed
If Greed is higher than loyalty, then there is no loyalty multiplier.
If Loyalty is higher than Greed
(Loyalty rating – Greed rating + 1) ^ 2 / 200 + 1

Play for winner (present)
(Play for winner rating – 4) ^ 3) * Wins from previous season / 40,000 + 1

Play for winner (future)
All players will require a certain number of wins.
Wins required = (play for winner multipler – 1) * 200 (Maximum 50 wins)
If a players wins is not reached the team that signed him will not receive a play for winner bonus for the next 5 seasons. (Future free agents will lose trust in this team) Example i sign a player with a 1.3 play for winner multiplier than trade this player to a bad team that fails to reach 50 wins. The next 5 seasons i will not receive a play for winner bonus so it is important to honor your signings.

Playing time
All players will require a certain number of minutes
Playing time rating ^ 3
If a player doesnt meet his required minutes future free agents will lose trust in this team and they will receive a .9 multiplier on all future free agents for the next 3 seasons. The penalty will stack if they have multiple infractions. If the player is ever injured below 85% the player will no longer demand his minutes.
Example CJ McCollum has a 9 playing time rating which is 729 minutes he currently sits at 408 minutes. I would be at risk of receiving a .9 penalty multiplier for this.

Time required for those running this system is minimal.

Possible additions
Playoffs including in play for winner formulas
All max contracts are better than all non max contracts
bidding on more players at a time using conditions to solve the order issue. All GMs will see the conditions so they can bid accordingly. The one offer per player would still apply. I feel this is superior so it doesnt turn into an auction.

[emplep7]

I have to sit down and really read through this, but some quick notes:

I like some of the proposals (using DDS for the insignificant bench players, multipliers based on age and end of contract) and have some questions about others (not sure how I feel about delayed processing and the one day clock for players). I also need to dive into those formulas you have posted, but we have some of this already in the sheet that Myles talked about in that post.

And as much as I would LOVE to include Playing Time penalties for FAs, that would be a bear to track for every player every season.

[Cleasby]

Couple of things from me

What I like
Play for winner penalties if you don't honour contracts on the bigger fas think Lillard.

Only being able to spend cap once not multiple offers

Visible bids for all GMs to see.

Idea for DDS to manage scrub signings and playing time demands to actually have a factor.

What needs work:

The team option multiplier is too high. This is a flaw with DDS where teams offer 3 year deals with a team option for mid tier guys to get them to sign cheap.

One offer per thread but you can increase your offer? How does this work?

Delay processing to the end of free agency would mean the team in question still has salary? Would this not just mean max cap guys price drive for the rest of free agency?

Play for winner multiplier needs to include playoff performance and finals/championships etc straight wins makes no sense. Some teams will cruise in regular season and then explode when it counts. This needs to factor into winning.

All items you have weighted are discussed in isolation and could just cancel themselves out. For example if a guys I greedy but demand playing time you could see that they have no weighting. How would your formula decide which factor is the post important for that player? We know some personalities in DDS are a bit strange so how do we tackle this?

[Myles]

I appreciate your commitment to this league and it's continued success. It's easy to criticize decisions without making any claims of your own, it's not easy to come up with your own system. I went ahead and wrote all my notes down here.

I like the goals, as for me the biggest goal is realism. I want a system that makes everyone feel like they are an NBA GM.

Bidding/The Process/Offers
I think our views differ on what realistic entails. 4 players auctioned per day is an auction, not a free agency period.

I agree with using DDS to fill out the minimum salary players. Moves quicker and saves people time and energy.

It would be very difficult IMO to police people bidding only what their current cap room allows, including other pending offers. I understand why you want to include this, but it would be difficult to police in real time.

"An agent will adjust the bid so it is a 15% increase over the last bid" so what happens if we have multiple bids in a row that don't follow those rules? Let's say we have three bids in a row that only increase by 10%? So a 10M offer, an 11M offer, then a 12M offer, and then the last person follows the rules with a 13.8M offer before an agent is able to get to it? Correcting those would mean that the last offer would need to be at least 15.2M. What happens if that is an illegal bid? Are we punishing the last GM for the mistakes of the first 3?

What about a team that wants to sign a player and thinks they are a better fit than the high bid, but can't afford to outbid that offer? What about teams that want to match the current high bid and trust that the player will choose their team? How can a max offer ever be "beat," even ignoring the 15% increase rule? There's no way to beat a full max offer with a player option.

Offers can't be retracted? Only 1 offer allowed per thread? What's the point of this? What purpose does this serve? Teams can't change their mind, or put in a better bid if their own bid gets beat?

Order of Players Auctioned/Delayed Processing
Why wouldn't the order be important to the GMs? What happens if a team's top 2 targets are set to be on different days? Their #2 target is going on day 2 and their #1 target is going on day 3. Do they not bid on their #2 target hoping to get the #1? And how does delayed processing work? Does that mean if they win the auction on their #2 target but then bid on their #1 target, they get to release their winning bid of the #2 target originally?

Delayed processing only really works within the confines of a sim league to help teams who are signing their own free agents. For example, if you want to sign Ben Simmons to a full max contract, but his cap hold is smaller than that, you can use the difference to sign other players, and then use his bird rights to sign him to the full max contract while over the cap.

Other than that scenario, delayed processing doesn't really do anything for a sim league. In fact, it makes pending-RFA holds moot. So the team that signs the RFA has their cap space held up for 48 hours while the mother team waits out the period before matching. So that's 2 days of auctions that the team has to miss out on. Except due to delayed processing, they don't have to wait, since they can delay the processing of bids won during those two days until after the RFA waiting period.

Multipliers
Can't really comment on these as I'd have to run a lot of tests to see how the coefficients stand up to different players and different teams. Also the PFW and PT tracking is a lot of work.

[Myles]

At the end of the day, this is a great proposal and system for an auction style free agency. I personally don't think that that achieves one of the main goals of implementing a new system which is realism. This does not feel similar to how the NBA does free agency, and that's what I want to emulate as best as we can.

[Marcos_Beck]

At the end of the day, this is a great proposal and system for an auction style free agency. I personally don't think that that achieves one of the main goals of implementing a new system which is realism. This does not feel similar to how the NBA does free agency, and that's what I want to emulate as best as we can.

I would love to have time to do an extensive comment like the guys above did. And I've read everything.
But the thing is I stand behind Myles 100% here. As a GM, I like to experience realism. That auction system doesn't bring that.

I love the penalties idea but this would be really really really really (can't express how really, actually) hard thing to do. It would lead to massive manual work which I'm totally against other than the ideas of having sheets where you input something and it automatically gives you what you need.

[Silogical]

Some comments on the comments

I created this as i wrote it so im not attached to it as its analyzed it could be changed

I disagree that this is an auction and the player agency proposed isnt. This system you put in one bid and the player sits on that bid unless someone comes in with a much better bid. if that happens that 1st bidder cannot come in and outbid the new bid the player is not having that he just wants your best offer from the get go.

The proposed system is an auction it just wants to be handled behind closed doors. We submit bids on a google form than the agents come in a tell us if we need to up our bids and we submit another google form. this is an auction.

Delayed processing is strickly about cap holds. The contract is inked, no backing out. happens in the NBA all the time. Delayed processing will speed up players being matched because it wont count against their cap. (They are not technically matched the players just agrees to sign the same contract later)

Policing cap room and the order is something that could be looked into, using a google spreadsheet with multiple players at a time and a lot of conditions is something that could fit well with this system.

If the initial bid is 10m
the next bid is 11.5m (not counting the other variables)
if we get a rapid succession of bids the team will always know where they stand because it is based on the initial bid.
first bid 10m
2nd bid + 15%
3rd bid +30%
4th bid +45%

One offer per thread but you can increase your offer? How does this work?

Delay processing to the end of free agency would mean the team in question still has salary? Would this not just mean max cap guys price drive for the rest of free agency?

Play for winner multiplier needs to include playoff performance and finals/championships etc straight wins makes no sense. Some teams will cruise in regular season and then explode when it counts. This needs to factor into winning.

All items you have weighted are discussed in isolation and could just cancel themselves out. For example if a guys I greedy but demand playing time you could see that they have no weighting. How would your formula decide which factor is the post important for that player? We know some personalities in DDS are a bit strange so how do we tackle this?

I couldnt find where it says you can increase you offer, but if its in there it shouldve been removed.

If the team option at .94 is determined to be too high it can be adjusted to .9 or .85 I think .94 is good. That is roughly a 6% premium you are paying for that team option and the team option year doesnt help other modifiers like length of contract.

Play for winner can and should include playoffs. Its something that could easily be added in.

Playing time doesnt have a formula, because who is to say how many minutes a player will play outside of the team signing him. So I felt the best way to handle playing time is the player requires a set number of minutes. As far as keeping track of this I dont think it would be that difficult a list of their demands would be made than a list from DDS stats would be copied and pasted to compare. If the player is injured the team can bring it to the attention of the league.

I dont see how high greed and high playing time cancel each other out. What do you mean by this? a lot of modifiers can cancel themsoelves out team option .94 would cancel itself out with a modifier that is 1.064

The win requirement/playoff requirement could be isolated to players making a certain contract. Scrubs dont ussually demand a winning situation and complain if they arnt winning. This would make it easier to track. Same goes for minutes played for that matter scrubs dont have minute demands.

[OneNole]

I would strongly be against a public 1 bid per team system. It would completely disincentivize a team to get an initial offer out there. Furthermore, with a transparent formula a team that was able to wait until the last minute to bid would be able to calculate the minimum bid necessary needed to sign a player. It's the same issue that many of us took advantage of in dds that something we should strive to avoid.

I honestly dont see the issue of everyone seeing the offers of other teams. I would be shocked if NBA gms were not aware of other teams offers, or at least a rough idea of what other teams are offering. It's an agents job to get their client the most money in the best system/situation possible.

[Silogical]

I would strongly be against a public 1 bid per team system. It would completely disincentivize a team to get an initial offer out there. Furthermore, with a transparent formula a team that was able to wait until the last minute to bid would be able to calculate the minimum bid necessary needed to sign a player. It's the same issue that many of us took advantage of in dds that something we should strive to avoid.

That's not true the minimum raise of 15% is pretty large. For example you have a player with a value of 10m/yr i put in a bid roughly 9.5m/yr do you come in last minute and over pay? roughly 11m/yr, 1m/yr more than he is worth. Which bid do you think is more porfitable long term my bid where i either save .5m/yr or sign no one or your bid where you either sign no one or over pay by 1m/yr?

In a league of smart GM's youd want to get your bid in early, in a league that doesnt understand value you might want to wait a bit. There is a lot of strategy and thought as to when you want to place your bid. It is also possible to raise the minimum offer as the player gets closer to making his decision.

hour 22 = 15.5%
hour 22.2 = 16%
and so on.

[Cleasby]

I would strongly be against a public 1 bid per team system. It would completely disincentivize a team to get an initial offer out there. Furthermore, with a transparent formula a team that was able to wait until the last minute to bid would be able to calculate the minimum bid necessary needed to sign a player. It's the same issue that many of us took advantage of in dds that something we should strive to avoid.

I honestly dont see the issue of everyone seeing the offers of other teams. I would be shocked if NBA gms were not aware of other teams offers, or at least a rough idea of what other teams are offering. It's an agents job to get their client the most money in the best system/situation possible.

Very true and why bids should be visible to everyone

[Dennis]

I would strongly be against a public 1 bid per team system. It would completely disincentivize a team to get an initial offer out there. Furthermore, with a transparent formula a team that was able to wait until the last minute to bid would be able to calculate the minimum bid necessary needed to sign a player. It's the same issue that many of us took advantage of in dds that something we should strive to avoid.

I honestly dont see the issue of everyone seeing the offers of other teams. I would be shocked if NBA gms were not aware of other teams offers, or at least a rough idea of what other teams are offering. It's an agents job to get their client the most money in the best system/situation possible.

Very true and why bids should be visible to everyone

One of the rare times I'm on the same page as Brett and cleasby? Now I'm shocked.

[Silogical]

I honestly dont see the issue of everyone seeing the offers of other teams. I would be shocked if NBA gms were not aware of other teams offers, or at least a rough idea of what other teams are offering. It's an agents job to get their client the most money in the best system/situation possible.

Very true and why bids should be visible to everyone

One of the rare times I'm on the same page as Brett and cleasby? Now I'm shocked.

This also seems to be one of the rare times i agree with brett 100%. Agents arnt going to keep offers secret from other GM's. Making the bids visible to other GM's will lead to more money for their client.

I would take it one step further and give each player their own thread where teams and agents can negotiate. Ive been in some of these "for fun" leagues that operated on the forums and they live up to their name they are fun and active. I always hated that they never used a sim engine though, this league could take the best of both worlds.

Making all offers and negotiations visible also makes it way easier to allow teams to bid on multiple players using the same cap. This seems to be the direction the admins want to go and making offers/negotiations visible would make this possible. If an agent convinces a team to make an offer conditional they dont sign Player X all the other teams will see this is a conditional offer, and can act accordingly.