RealGM

Let's say a team A is 10M under the cap after making a qualifying offer to its own restricted free agent, player A, in whom the team has full Bird rights. The team thinks that market value for player A is around 7-8M and that he may receive one or more offer sheets in that range from other teams.

Meanwhile, Team A covets another restricted free agent, player B, and wants to make an offer starting at 9M. Here are three secenarios:

1. Team A goes to player A and his agent and says "we're going to make an offer to player B. Please wait 72 hours before signing an offer from another team. If we sign player B, we'll go over the cap to match any offer to player A." I assume this would be a Joe Smith "under the table" deal and would subject Team A to discipline.

2. Same situation, except that Team A doesn't promise to match. It simply asks the agent to wait 72 hours to keep options open. Does this pass the sniff test?

3. Same situation, except that player A and player B are friends and would love to play together on Team A. They've been texting each other every day. Player A instructs his agent: "I'm not signing any offer sheets until I see what happens with my friend. If he joins team A, I want you to try to negotiate an extension. If we can't, I'll entertain offers, hoping that team A will go over the cap to match." I assume that if the player initiates the 72 hour delay, there's no problem, right?

duplicate deleted.

Curmudgeon wrote:Let's say a team A is 10M under the cap after making a qualifying offer to its own restricted free agent, player A, in whom the team has full Bird rights. The team thinks that market value for player A is around 7-8M and that he may receive one or more offer sheets in that range from other teams.

Meanwhile, Team A covets another restricted free agent, player B, and wants to make an offer starting at 9M. Here are three secenarios:

1. Team A goes to player A and his agent and says "we're going to make an offer to player B. Please wait 72 hours before signing an offer from another team. If we sign player B, we'll go over the cap to match any offer to player A." I assume this would be a Joe Smith "under the table" deal and would subject Team A to discipline.

2. Same situation, except that Team A doesn't promise to match. It simply asks the agent to wait 72 hours to keep options open. Does this pass the sniff test?

3. Same situation, except that player A and player B are friends and would love to play together on Team A. They've been texting each other every day. Player A instructs his agent: "I'm not signing any offer sheets until I see what happens with my friend. If he joins team A, I want you to try to negotiate an extension. If we can't, I'll entertain offers, hoping that team A will go over the cap to match." I assume that if the player initiates the 72 hour delay, there's no problem, right?

i think you're
1 imagining issues that don't exist
2 ignoring the primary issue of all

The main issue that matters re the player is what he wants to do. But in your scenarios you don't say if we're theorizing options for a player who wants to stay with Team A, or doesn't.

And defining that makes it simple. If he prefers to stay, he cooperates with Team A to accommodate their cap and make it easy to sign others, before he signs. If he doesn't want to stay, he uses their moves to work against their ability to keep him.

And none of these choices would be illegal, or even remotely similar to what Joe Smith and Minny did, where they had a secret written contract.[

It seemed too obvious to mention that in either of my first two scenarios player A would have to be willing to cooperate.

If, in my first scenario, Team A wouldn't be violating the rules, then it certainly makes it easier for a team to retain its own RFA while going after another.

But is that really true? In that first scenario, the offer to match would have to be secret, otherwise no second team would extend an offer (knowing that it would be futile). So if the secret agreement to match was in writing, it would be against the rules, but a secret handshake deal would be ok?

No. You're making it overly (and unrealistically) complex to imagine RFA Joe signing an offer sheet with another team. There's no reason for that to happen. Joe wants to play with Team A, Team A wants the same thing, and they talk and agree on an amount that makes sense to both of them (not a "secret deal," just a meeting of the minds). Joe is not going to be chasing a contract with someone else, in that context.

So, Joe and Team A negotiate a number that works for both of them. Then Team A goes about its business. They sign an offer sheet with the RFA from another team, and then wait until they're sure they get him before signing Joe. If the RFA from another team is matched, they spend that cap room elsewhere before signing Joe. Eventually, they sign Joe.

Suppose another team makes a godfather offer for Joe on day 1 of free agency?

I'm not sure what a godfather offer is. But how is this relevant to Joe and Team A deciding & agreeing he is returning, and working together to make that happen with the inclusion of other talent too? If you're saying he does NOT want to play for Team A, isn't that a completely different scenario and irrelevant to the ones you asked about?

I understand your point.

It also depends on the cap hold of keeping Player A. Say it's about $4 million, with only $10 million in space you could only offer Player B the other $6 million if you want to keep Player A restricted.

BlackOutBuzz wrote:It also depends on the cap hold of keeping Player A. Say it's about $4 million, with only $10 million in space you could only offer Player B the other $6 million if you want to keep Player A restricted.

With all due respect, the size of the cap hold is already built into the scenario that was asked. It was surmised that Team A has $10M of cap room after making RFA Joe (aka Player A) restricted. Obviously that cap room is calculated inclusive of whatever his cap hold would be.

Team A wants to also land Player B, who will cost $9M. They have $10M in cap room after making the QO (and accounting for the cap hold) to Joe. So they can sign him for $9M as long as the cost to keep Joe doesn't increase.

But if Joe's cap hold is $4M, then signing him to an $8M deal eats up $8M of cap room for the salary rather than $4M for a cap hold, and Team A's cap room would be reduced from $10M to $6M. So if it takes $9M to sign Player B, he can be signed before Joe signs with Team A, but not after.

I think the angle of the OP was a focus on the legality and possibility of a team and player working cooperatively, when the timing requires a certain sequence in order to have the cap room for multiple moves.

DBoys wrote:
I think the angle of the OP was a focus on the legality and possibility of a team and player working cooperatively, when the timing requires a certain sequence in order to have the cap room for multiple moves.

Yes, that's correct. The idea is to use up your cap space first, and then use Bird rights to resign your own free agents.

I see your Re: Re: and raise you one more Re: