- • Trades are posted within the trade office forum. One of the General Manager should post the trade with the other side to confirm the deal. Reasons for making the trade must be included.
• Once both General Managers have confirmed, both players are now bound and committed to the trade. To cancel the trade, both General Managers approval is required. No one GM can cancel a trade by themselves.
• No commenting in the posted trade threads. We have a trade discussion thread for that. Any irrelevant comments will be removed from the thread.
• Once traded, a player will be restricted for 30 days. After that period, he’s eligible to be traded again. See trade restrictions for more details.
• This does not apply to draft picks which can be traded at any time without any restriction.
• Any trade that is posted must have every item available at the time for trade or the thread will be locked and the trade will need to be re-posted at the correct time.
• The offseason counts as one (1) day. For example, a drafted rookie is essentially drafted on day 1 of the new season and not in June as normal.
• In any trade, no team can trade more than five (5) players in total. Pick numbers are not included or counted in trades.
• All trades are to have no more than four (4) teams involved.
• All teams involved in any trade must be aware of the entire trade before accepting. A trade will be denied if one team is not aware of the entire deal.
• Verbals are outlawed when posting a trade. They cannot be part of a trade where a 2nd part will be completed at a later date. Each deal will be judged on its own merits, and not take any prior or future dealings into account.
• GM’s can keep verbals amongst themselves for full trades to be posted at a certain time but they are only verbals and not binding. If a GM backs out, it is frowned upon by the entire league but that GM has not broken a rule other than risking other GM’s not wanting to deal with him again. Do not get into a verbal agreement unless you trust the GM or risk it backfiring.
- • Players acquired via trade may not be traded again for sixty (60) days from the date of the trade. If a player is traded in the off-season, the date of his trade is treated as October 31st.
• Players acquired via off-season free agency may not be traded for ninety (90) days from the start of the new season.
• Players drafted in the amateur draft may be traded once during their rookie rights period (until the end of free agency or until the league votes to end it, whichever comes first), but then may not be traded for ninety (90) days from the start of the new season. Even if the rookie was traded during his rookie rights period, he still falls under the rookie ninety (90) day restriction and not the traded sixty (60) day restriction.
• Players acquired via in-season free agency may not be traded for thirty (30) days from the date they were signed.
• A player cannot be traded back to the same team after being traded in the same off season/season cycle.
Key Trade-Related Dates
October 31st - Start of Season
December 31st - Off-season traded players may be traded again
January 31st - Off-season signed players and drafted rookies may be traded again
February 22nd - Trade Deadline
Salary Trade Restrictions
- • If your team is under the salary cap, you may take back 150% + $100,000 of the salary you are sending out, or the cap space you have available, whichever is greater.
• If your team is over the salary cap but under the luxury tax, you may take back 150% + $100,000 of the salary you are sending out.
• If your team is over the luxury tax, you may take back 125% + $100,000 of the salary you are sending out.
• As long as you remain under the hard cap post trade, you may receive one (1) minimum salary player in a deal without needing to send any salary back. This only applies to one (1) minimum salary player trades, not trades where other players are involved on either side.
• At no point may your team execute a trade where you end up over the hard cap after the deal is complete.
- • The consecutive picks rule applies where a team must have one 1st rounder every two years. Teams are not allowed to trade picks for the draft if it breaks the consecutive rule. For example, Team X has a 2014 first but no 2015 first. They cannot trade their 2016 first until they either receive a 2015 first or until the conclusion of the 2015 draft.
• A team cannot have more than four first round picks in the same draft. All others will be forfeited if not traded away.
• Teams are only allowed to trade their picks of the following next three years (In 2015 for example 15, 16, 17).
- • Teams can apply draft pick protection to any of their own 1st round draft picks. You cannot apply or modify a protection on another teams draft pick, or on any 2nd round picks. If a protected pick is traded, the protection is traded with it. No deleting or modifying that protection. Only the mother team can protect their picks. For example, if the Spurs trade their own 1st, they can protect it. If they trade the pick unprotected, the receiving team cannot then trade this pick and add protection.
• You can only apply one year of protection. No scaled down protection in years to follow. If protection is enforced, a team will receive the next available 1st round pick unprotected. This means that when receiving a pick with protection, the receiving team may not receive the unprotected pick for some years.
• Only one protection per pick.
• Under no circumstances can a team sign and then trade another team's free agent. But there is a rule that allows teams to re-sign their own free agents for trading purposes, called the Sign-and-Trade rule. Under the Sign-and-Trade rule, the player is re-signed and immediately traded to another team. If not followed out within three (3) days of the announcement of the signing, the player's contract will be null and void, and the player will return to the free agent pool.
• A sign-and-trade deal requires the team to have at least three (3) bird years of the player to be signed and traded, but cannot be made when the player is signed using the Mid-Level or Low-Level exceptions. Sign-and-trade contracts must be for three years or longer, however they do not have to be all guaranteed (an option can be utilized). The three year minimum (even though the last season may be non-guaranteed) ensures that the new team will not acquire Bird rights to the player any sooner than if they had signed him directly.
• Restricted Free Agents can be signed and traded under the traditional sign-and-trade rules, but cannot be signed and traded if the mother team retains the player by way of matching an offer sheet. If the player signs an offer sheet, and the mother team elects to retain the RFA, that player is locked into the ninety (90) day restriction.
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