Time to Get Rid of Restricted FA?

[wegotthabeet]

Yes.

I brought this up on the Raptors board recently and with NIL I would now prefer a higher age restriction combined with the elimination of restricted free agency.

No one wants to develop a Tracy McGrady level prospect from 18 to 21 only to watch him walk for nothing just as he’s beginning his prime. If the rookie deal ran from 21 to 25 you’d have a much better chance of assessing the players value and acting accordingly.

[nykballa2k4]

All of the players in RFA now are guys who should be there. None of them are sure-thing stars and their true contract value is ambiguous depending on how you expect them to develop.

I might tweak the BYC and QO rules before getting rid of RFA.

Just doing away with BYC would make facilitation a lot easier on teams in sign-and-trade scenarios. It exists primarily to be a pain when you don't need to add pain to this kind of process.

You could also tweak the QO rules so that the team is able to set whatever QO dollar amount they want, and they're able to match up to twice that number in first year salary. That makes the teams' and players' decisions a lot more interesting.

I like all of this. BYC is dumb and apron restrictions make those type of moves to big spenders harder/illegal now anyways. QO with match based on the tendered contract is great. Should be a lower percentage though, maybe only 50% more. But, either way, cool idea.

Tangentially related, but a player should be able to waive any of the "wait X days" before moving them in re-aggregation or just signed this extension/etc type limits.

Agree with the tangent.

[nykballa2k4]

Spoiler:

I feel like these conversations come up every off-season.

The populous (no forum is ever going to completely agree) is:

1. RFA is fine. 29 teams can bid on the player. If there was no bidding option, that would be bad. But, that would also just be the rookie contract with team options. Teams scout talent for years. And if they hit, they should hopefully be able to keep them. Or make a trade and recover some of the sunken cost. Players can decline the RFA and become unrestricted free agents. They literally opt into it.

2. Hard cap. One franchise player you can pay whatever that doesn't count towards the cap. If he is traded, whatever salary he is given counts towards the receiving team's hard cap. Gives teams more of an ability to retain talent while preventing super-rich owners from just buying a team. If this sounds like the NFL, yes. This is where that came from. And the NFL is killing it.

3. The "how do we make the Lakers better?" rule. Teams should be able to fund the state taxes of their players without it affecting the salary cap. That way, states like Florida and Texas don't have an unfair advantage when it comes to players' take home salary. You can see my bias on this topic, as I named it the "how do we make the Lakers better?" rule. But you have Blazers and Kings and tons of other franchises going, "Yeah! State tax is what's killing our playoff hopes!"

NBA shouldn't balance state income tax advance while leaving other advantages untouched. Why shouldn't Miami get a -15% South Beach debuff to the salary cap to put them on an equal footing with Milwaukee? Or maybe Toronto should get a +25% Canada buff.

Almost every NBA player pays some California tax, it is just based on how many games they play in the state (for/against the 4 teams in the state). Same for NY and a bunch of other states. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.

I think it makes a lot of sense to express salaries in terms of after-tax net, and have the salary cap managed to that net number.

I and-1'd but there is the obvious caveat. Cap is based on revenue sharing which means that owners collectively would wind up having to pay more than their negotiated share to make this happen.

[nykballa2k4]

Yes.

I brought this up on the Raptors board recently and with NIL I would now prefer a higher age restriction combined with the elimination of restricted free agency.

No one wants to develop a Tracy McGrady level prospect from 18 to 21 only to watch him walk for nothing just as he’s beginning his prime. If the rookie deal ran from 21 to 25 you’d have a much better chance of assessing the players value and acting accordingly.

No way the NBA agrees to that. There are plenty of 19 year olds that are useful on NBA line ups. Flagg, despite his age, will be an above average starter next year.


To respond to OP

This is a take that I've been thinking about for a while, with the Giddey/Kuminga situations and now Cam Thomas chirping at Zach Lowe for reporting a lack of interest in him, I thought it might be the time to raise it for discussion.

It feels like restricted FA is no longer being used for its intended purpose - making sure that teams can keep the guys they really want to - and is more of a cudgel to force good, but not critical, players to accept less than what they could get on the open market as UFAs. Most teams lock up their "core" guys via extensions long before they reach free agency. Accordingly most high-level player movement now happens via trade rather than free agency. Which in a lot of ways is a win-win: players get more money guaranteed sooner, and teams get something back for players instead of letting them go for nothing.

So then the FA market ends up being less "superstars" and more "good but flawed/limited/underdeveloped" players. Teams are more and more using their cap space to pursue uneven trades for assets and/or be tax/apron-driven third wheels in other teams' deals. Even more and more FAs are changing teams via S&Ts rather than outsight signings.

All that means that the core idea of RFA being "fair" to players is flawed. They can't go out and "prove" their worth on the open market because there's no cap space and no market for them. They also can't go out and choose a better situation to "prove" their worth because their original team can and is incentivized to match a below market deal, even if they don't intend to give them a real chance to be a featured guy.

TLDR: the fundamental assumptions of restricted FA are no longer accurate and the league should get rid of it.

Thoughts? If this is too far the other idea I had was keeping RFA but putting real teeth into the qualifying offer, something like 150% of the full MLE (which would be $21.1M this year) and imposing a cap hold for that amount while it's outstanding, so teams have to actually think about whether to offer a QO rather than just doing it reflexively.

I think a lot of FA's this summer are getting shafted to some degree. It's really nice for Jimmy that the Warriors did what they did for him because honestly there was no realistic path to him getting this extension anywhere else.

RFA does discourage teams from making moves because of the threat of match, but I don't think this crop of RFA's are impacted severely. If they wanted to make a tweak on the QO to make it a 2 year deal with 2nd year player option (and retaining bird rights) thus empowering the player a bit more that would be interesting. I just don't see the motivation for it.

Bucks were able to make their surprise move for Turner because Pacers thought they could match. Turner did not afford them that and he bounced.
If the Bucks wanted to do that for a Grimes or Cam Thomas, they probably would not have done it because the chance of the RFA match.

Overall it is a good mechanism to help keep players on their drafted teams.

[wegotthabeet]

Yes.

I brought this up on the Raptors board recently and with NIL I would now prefer a higher age restriction combined with the elimination of restricted free agency.

No one wants to develop a Tracy McGrady level prospect from 18 to 21 only to watch him walk for nothing just as he’s beginning his prime. If the rookie deal ran from 21 to 25 you’d have a much better chance of assessing the players value and acting accordingly.

No way the NBA agrees to that. There are plenty of 19 year olds that are useful on NBA line ups. Flagg, despite his age, will be an above average starter next year.


To respond to OP

This is a take that I've been thinking about for a while, with the Giddey/Kuminga situations and now Cam Thomas chirping at Zach Lowe for reporting a lack of interest in him, I thought it might be the time to raise it for discussion.

It feels like restricted FA is no longer being used for its intended purpose - making sure that teams can keep the guys they really want to - and is more of a cudgel to force good, but not critical, players to accept less than what they could get on the open market as UFAs. Most teams lock up their "core" guys via extensions long before they reach free agency. Accordingly most high-level player movement now happens via trade rather than free agency. Which in a lot of ways is a win-win: players get more money guaranteed sooner, and teams get something back for players instead of letting them go for nothing.

So then the FA market ends up being less "superstars" and more "good but flawed/limited/underdeveloped" players. Teams are more and more using their cap space to pursue uneven trades for assets and/or be tax/apron-driven third wheels in other teams' deals. Even more and more FAs are changing teams via S&Ts rather than outsight signings.

All that means that the core idea of RFA being "fair" to players is flawed. They can't go out and "prove" their worth on the open market because there's no cap space and no market for them. They also can't go out and choose a better situation to "prove" their worth because their original team can and is incentivized to match a below market deal, even if they don't intend to give them a real chance to be a featured guy.

TLDR: the fundamental assumptions of restricted FA are no longer accurate and the league should get rid of it.

Thoughts? If this is too far the other idea I had was keeping RFA but putting real teeth into the qualifying offer, something like 150% of the full MLE (which would be $21.1M this year) and imposing a cap hold for that amount while it's outstanding, so teams have to actually think about whether to offer a QO rather than just doing it reflexively.

I think a lot of FA's this summer are getting shafted to some degree. It's really nice for Jimmy that the Warriors did what they did for him because honestly there was no realistic path to him getting this extension anywhere else.

RFA does discourage teams from making moves because of the threat of match, but I don't think this crop of RFA's are impacted severely. If they wanted to make a tweak on the QO to make it a 2 year deal with 2nd year player option (and retaining bird rights) thus empowering the player a bit more that would be interesting. I just don't see the motivation for it.

Bucks were able to make their surprise move for Turner because Pacers thought they could match. Turner did not afford them that and he bounced.
If the Bucks wanted to do that for a Grimes or Cam Thomas, they probably would not have done it because the chance of the RFA match.

Overall it is a good mechanism to help keep players on their drafted teams.

They’d be a lot more useful if they were 21.

It’s undeniably better for the league and teams. Player empowerment is on the decline as well.

[nykballa2k4]

Yes.

I brought this up on the Raptors board recently and with NIL I would now prefer a higher age restriction combined with the elimination of restricted free agency.

No one wants to develop a Tracy McGrady level prospect from 18 to 21 only to watch him walk for nothing just as he’s beginning his prime. If the rookie deal ran from 21 to 25 you’d have a much better chance of assessing the players value and acting accordingly.

No way the NBA agrees to that. There are plenty of 19 year olds that are useful on NBA line ups. Flagg, despite his age, will be an above average starter next year.


To respond to OP

This is a take that I've been thinking about for a while, with the Giddey/Kuminga situations and now Cam Thomas chirping at Zach Lowe for reporting a lack of interest in him, I thought it might be the time to raise it for discussion.

It feels like restricted FA is no longer being used for its intended purpose - making sure that teams can keep the guys they really want to - and is more of a cudgel to force good, but not critical, players to accept less than what they could get on the open market as UFAs. Most teams lock up their "core" guys via extensions long before they reach free agency. Accordingly most high-level player movement now happens via trade rather than free agency. Which in a lot of ways is a win-win: players get more money guaranteed sooner, and teams get something back for players instead of letting them go for nothing.

So then the FA market ends up being less "superstars" and more "good but flawed/limited/underdeveloped" players. Teams are more and more using their cap space to pursue uneven trades for assets and/or be tax/apron-driven third wheels in other teams' deals. Even more and more FAs are changing teams via S&Ts rather than outsight signings.

All that means that the core idea of RFA being "fair" to players is flawed. They can't go out and "prove" their worth on the open market because there's no cap space and no market for them. They also can't go out and choose a better situation to "prove" their worth because their original team can and is incentivized to match a below market deal, even if they don't intend to give them a real chance to be a featured guy.

TLDR: the fundamental assumptions of restricted FA are no longer accurate and the league should get rid of it.

Thoughts? If this is too far the other idea I had was keeping RFA but putting real teeth into the qualifying offer, something like 150% of the full MLE (which would be $21.1M this year) and imposing a cap hold for that amount while it's outstanding, so teams have to actually think about whether to offer a QO rather than just doing it reflexively.

I think a lot of FA's this summer are getting shafted to some degree. It's really nice for Jimmy that the Warriors did what they did for him because honestly there was no realistic path to him getting this extension anywhere else.

RFA does discourage teams from making moves because of the threat of match, but I don't think this crop of RFA's are impacted severely. If they wanted to make a tweak on the QO to make it a 2 year deal with 2nd year player option (and retaining bird rights) thus empowering the player a bit more that would be interesting. I just don't see the motivation for it.

Bucks were able to make their surprise move for Turner because Pacers thought they could match. Turner did not afford them that and he bounced.
If the Bucks wanted to do that for a Grimes or Cam Thomas, they probably would not have done it because the chance of the RFA match.

Overall it is a good mechanism to help keep players on their drafted teams.

They’d be a lot more useful if they were 21.

It’s undeniably better for the league and teams. Player empowerment is on the decline as well.

Oh it's 100% better to get the kids in earlier. The only way it isn't would be if the NCAA pays off the NBA to keep those players in the NCAA system longer.

If you are an NBA owner and there is a player like Zion, he would have been a draw out of HS. The NBA would rather have Zion at age 18 and have him until the end of his career (lets say 32) rather than if he got into the league at 21. Nothing is worse than the wear and tear that AAU puts on these kids so I do not buy the "but the career will be less cuz it started earlier" argument. 14 years of Zion > 11 years of Zion for the NBA.

Now, the BEST system would be to expand the draft into HS ages and allow professional teams develop their talents in lower leagues (HS, college, etc) until they are NBA-ready. Euro league has 16 year olds on professional clubs. In basketball (unlike football) this would actually benefit the players because there would be teams that help players develop for mutual gains rather than AAU stuff where it's all politics and burning out the kids.

[wegotthabeet]

No way the NBA agrees to that. There are plenty of 19 year olds that are useful on NBA line ups. Flagg, despite his age, will be an above average starter next year.


To respond to OP


I think a lot of FA's this summer are getting shafted to some degree. It's really nice for Jimmy that the Warriors did what they did for him because honestly there was no realistic path to him getting this extension anywhere else.

RFA does discourage teams from making moves because of the threat of match, but I don't think this crop of RFA's are impacted severely. If they wanted to make a tweak on the QO to make it a 2 year deal with 2nd year player option (and retaining bird rights) thus empowering the player a bit more that would be interesting. I just don't see the motivation for it.

Bucks were able to make their surprise move for Turner because Pacers thought they could match. Turner did not afford them that and he bounced.
If the Bucks wanted to do that for a Grimes or Cam Thomas, they probably would not have done it because the chance of the RFA match.

Overall it is a good mechanism to help keep players on their drafted teams.

They’d be a lot more useful if they were 21.

It’s undeniably better for the league and teams. Player empowerment is on the decline as well.

Oh it's 100% better to get the kids in earlier. The only way it isn't would be if the NCAA pays off the NBA to keep those players in the NCAA system longer.

If you are an NBA owner and there is a player like Zion, he would have been a draw out of HS. The NBA would rather have Zion at age 18 and have him until the end of his career (lets say 32) rather than if he got into the league at 21. Nothing is worse than the wear and tear that AAU puts on these kids so I do not buy the "but the career will be less cuz it started earlier" argument. 14 years of Zion > 11 years of Zion for the NBA.

Now, the BEST system would be to expand the draft into HS ages and allow professional teams develop their talents in lower leagues (HS, college, etc) until they are NBA-ready. Euro league has 16 year olds on professional clubs. In basketball (unlike football) this would actually benefit the players because there would be teams that help players develop for mutual gains rather than AAU stuff where it's all politics and burning out the kids.

Not sure Zion is the best example of declaring early. How good would Jordan have been at 18? Non impactful at best.

I would be fine with players being able to declare early to secure the bag, but forced to stay in college for three years afterwards. The NBA generally doesn’t care much about player development. There’s no extensive farm system like baseball or hockey, so copying football is the better model.

Currently these guys mostly enter the league non impactful and that’s due to age. It’s better when players are impactful from day 1. It’s better when you know what you’re getting drafting in the top 3. Three years of Zion hype > one from every perspective.

[nykballa2k4]

They’d be a lot more useful if they were 21.

It’s undeniably better for the league and teams. Player empowerment is on the decline as well.

Oh it's 100% better to get the kids in earlier. The only way it isn't would be if the NCAA pays off the NBA to keep those players in the NCAA system longer.

If you are an NBA owner and there is a player like Zion, he would have been a draw out of HS. The NBA would rather have Zion at age 18 and have him until the end of his career (lets say 32) rather than if he got into the league at 21. Nothing is worse than the wear and tear that AAU puts on these kids so I do not buy the "but the career will be less cuz it started earlier" argument. 14 years of Zion > 11 years of Zion for the NBA.

Now, the BEST system would be to expand the draft into HS ages and allow professional teams develop their talents in lower leagues (HS, college, etc) until they are NBA-ready. Euro league has 16 year olds on professional clubs. In basketball (unlike football) this would actually benefit the players because there would be teams that help players develop for mutual gains rather than AAU stuff where it's all politics and burning out the kids.

Not sure Zion is the best example of declaring early. How good would Jordan have been at 18? Non impactful at best.

I would be fine with players being able to declare early to secure the bag, but forced to stay in college for three years afterwards. The NBA generally doesn’t care much about player development. There’s no extensive farm system like baseball or hockey, so copying football is the better model.

Currently these guys mostly enter the league non impactful and that’s due to age. It’s better when players are impactful from day 1. It’s better when you know what you’re getting drafting in the top 3. Three years of Zion hype > one from every perspective.

Zion isn't hype though. When he plays he is all-star worthy. He has been a top 150 player (5*30, so starter) since day one.

A major issue with the NBA is it really has a poor developmental system. College is a different game. International is a different game with different rules. G-league box scores feature guys who can't sniff the NBA rotation averaging all-star numbers at that level (Free Mac!)

Raising the age limit for NBA doesn't do much to help the product. I would argue with the rules since 2005 or so that favor speed/athleticism over talent that the "prime" of a player has moved up. Players can start their prime at age 20.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/youngest-nba-all-star-players
There are 11 players here who were all-stars before hitting age 21. Half that list are current NBA players.
There are a TON of players age 21 who were all-stars implying that age 20 they were probably pretty darn good (if we assume all-star means top 30 in the whole league).

The only real reason for the NBA to do this is because this increases revenue for college programs and the NBA can get a kick back, perhaps outside of the sharable portion with players.

IMO the NBA should work with other leagues in the world and college to be able to draft players and loan them out, with the team they are being loaned to covering a portion of their salary.

IE Knicks could sign Pat Bev for vet min, he and Tel Aviv could agree to him playing there for 1/2 the season, they pay him 1M, so Knicks cap he counts as 2M, he plays/stays in shape, and can come back. Knicks draft Pac as they did, but instead of having him in our minors, letting him play in France at a top league for another year, they pay 1M for him, so Knicks on the cap are only responsible for the other .8M while preserving a roster spot.

Again, I think the NBA draft should be dropped to age 16, but with additional freedoms for the players, like they can remain in their youth leagues, play college, receive NIL etc but on a mutual basis.

[Billl]

I think you are missing a big piece here. Yes, most of the good players are signing extensions before they reach RFA. That's not in a vacuum though. They are signing these extensions BECAUSE of RFA. Since the team is going to be able to keep you no matter what, you there is a big incentive to sign that extension as soon as you can. If you take away RFA, then many of the top players would just wait until FA and get to pick their franchise.

[winforlose]

This is a take that I've been thinking about for a while, with the Giddey/Kuminga situations and now Cam Thomas chirping at Zach Lowe for reporting a lack of interest in him, I thought it might be the time to raise it for discussion.

It feels like restricted FA is no longer being used for its intended purpose - making sure that teams can keep the guys they really want to - and is more of a cudgel to force good, but not critical, players to accept less than what they could get on the open market as UFAs. Most teams lock up their "core" guys via extensions long before they reach free agency. Accordingly most high-level player movement now happens via trade rather than free agency. Which in a lot of ways is a win-win: players get more money guaranteed sooner, and teams get something back for players instead of letting them go for nothing.

So then the FA market ends up being less "superstars" and more "good but flawed/limited/underdeveloped" players. Teams are more and more using their cap space to pursue uneven trades for assets and/or be tax/apron-driven third wheels in other teams' deals. Even more and more FAs are changing teams via S&Ts rather than outsight signings.

All that means that the core idea of RFA being "fair" to players is flawed. They can't go out and "prove" their worth on the open market because there's no cap space and no market for them. They also can't go out and choose a better situation to "prove" their worth because their original team can and is incentivized to match a below market deal, even if they don't intend to give them a real chance to be a featured guy.

TLDR: the fundamental assumptions of restricted FA are no longer accurate and the league should get rid of it.

Thoughts? If this is too far the other idea I had was keeping RFA but putting real teeth into the qualifying offer, something like 150% of the full MLE (which would be $21.1M this year) and imposing a cap hold for that amount while it's outstanding, so teams have to actually think about whether to offer a QO rather than just doing it reflexively.

I agree that for some players like Kuminga the RFA system can do damage. At the same time, I would not call it a top 3 problem in the game. My biggest change would be to make player endorsements count against the salary cap. The big markets get their players a lot more Ad revenue and big city perks (tickets for events, secondary moneymaking opportunities, ect…,) then the smaller markets. This allows free agent talent to flock to a handful of teams. If you account for that in the cap with some kind of prorated formula, you level the playing field. By doing that, now you open the door to other free agency reforms.