The Resign Rule

[Adam Silver(Admin)]

Proposed Rule Change: The Resign Rule

What is a Resign:
A Resign allows teams to retain players with ending contracts, either UFA and RFA, by allowing them to bypass the league bidding process.

What are the different types of Resigns:
Extension Resign – This allows you to sign an UFA or RFA with an expiring contract at a discounted rate established by the Resign Rule* with an annual increase of 7.5%, for a max of 3 years.

Franchise Tag Resign – This allows you to sign an UFA or RFA with an expiring contract at their newly signed NBA contract amount & length.

*The discounted contract of an Extension Resign is found using the “Resign Rule”

Current Resign Rule – A resigned players contract will be determined by taking 50% of the AFPPG of the players most recent 20+ game season. This figure will then be used as the 1st year salary of the players resign contract.

Example

Player A: 40 AFPPG
50% x 40 = 20, which in cap currency becomes $20,000,000, Player A’s first year salary.

Player A Resign Contract (w 7.5% annual increase) – $20,000,000; $21,500,000; $23,112,500; UFA

Issue:
When this bylaw was originally created in 2014, the league salary cap at the time was 80M. This salary cap figure was used when creating the original Resign Rule to scale. Well since that time, we have seen a 20% hike in real life NBA cap space, which in turn has increased the average NBA salary.

One of the primary goals of this league is to give owners the “Real GM’ feel in a competitive fantasy basketball environment. In efforts to uphold these goals, the Resign Rule should be altered to account for current and future inflation in the NBA salary cap.


This is an example of the issue

2014 (The potential max contract for a 10+ year vet is around 23M)

• Mello resigned with the New York Knicks. He was awarded a MAX contract starting at roughly 22.5M because he was a 10+ year. 

Now for the sake of this example, though  Mello averaged more than 40 FPPG in the 14-15 season, we will use 40 AFPPG as a benchmark.

Based off the Resign Rule, if Mello was resigned in FFD he would have a starting salary of 20M, which as we see is not far from his real life contract. Which in turn makes franchising him an actual option.


2017 (The potential max contract for a 10+ year vet is 36M)

• Now lets say that same 29 year old Mello had resigned in 2017. He was for sure a max contract guy at the age of 29 so he would draw a max contract around 33-36M.

Again for the sake of the argument, we are going say he averages 40 FPPG.

Based off the Resign Rule, if Mello was resigned in FFD he would have a starting salary of 20M, which now due to the cap increases over the past couple years is nowhere close to what he would sign in real life. Almost making the Franchise tag pointless.


Goal: We need to bring the Resign Rule somewhat to scale with the NBA due to salary cap increases. We also need to create a revision for future cap increases.

I already have a potential solution, but I would like to hear if any of you had some ideas on the best way to address the issue.  

[Deleted]

Make it like 65% instead of 50%? With an increase to the team salary of around 20% we should be as close to that as possible but still make it viable?

[Deleted]

I think we need to be careful with how this is adjusted. I see where you guys are going with the league economics, and there is definitely some wiggle room, but I would not want to see a considerable adjustment where the value of the resign tag becomes challenging or even prohibitive. I think we need to really consider how difficult it will be to retain talent in a 30 team league.

A couple of concepts that I think we should evaluate before deciding:
1. I don't think the Franchise tag is necessarily useless, but it would be used differently. It becomes a more expensive option, and you may not consistently place it on premium talent, but it does act as a vehicle to retain talent longer term. Which some GM's may pay up for strategy-wise to keep talent on 4 and 5 year deals (versus 3 years on the resign). That's valuable if used strategically.

2. I agree that the resign rules with the new CBA make the resign tags definitely economical, and therefore super valuable when used on top talent. I just wonder out loud, if that's necessarily bad? I see other factors to consider. The one that stands out to me is how scarce the tags are. This cycle of the league is 5 years with only 4 tags available to retain a teams own talent. I hear the notion that we are trying to mirror the NBA as closely as possible, but there will inevitably be some things that don't line up perfectly. For instance - some of the contracts in the NBA are offered to players based on attributes that don't impact box scores. Yet in our league we are paying them essentially to only produce on stat sheets. So at times we pay inflated prices for things that don't carry over. Additionally, in the NBA there are no limitations on resigning your own FA's if you can agree to terms. In our league we do have restrictions, to make sure the player pool does replenish itself talent-wise over time. And that make sense. But it's not a mirror image of the NBA. It's close, but not exact.

3. Another thought I have, is that - would the economics sort of correct itself regardless??? After every season we will see UFA's and RFA's being signed by teams. People who are in leagues can comment more to this than I can. But I would assume the race for talent would spill into the bidding on UFA's and RFA's where teams would be spending their cap and re-setting the player market within our league versus the NBA.

4. Again, I'm just thinking out loud and trouble shooting on the topic. Personally I'd opt for what I assume would translate to more cap flexibility for ease of trading, and the actual chance to build a "dynasty" versus making the tag drive costs up. Because another thought I have is that some of the players that teams will be "forced" to resign will not always provide a return. I'll throw out an example, without really knowing where it's going, but from a GM perspective. If I owned Jeff Teague and he was going into FA. I'd likely have to try to retain him. On the resign he is likely looking at a deal starting in the 18 million-ish range. Some might say it's a good deal for a player avg 37FPPG. But there is also plenty of risk. That is almost 20% of the current cap, which at this very moment is not currently scheduled to go up any further. That's a lot. 8 starters with 20% in 1 guy, on a 13 man roster. The reason specifically it feels like a lot is this. Do we really believe in Jeff Teague being a dominant fantasy play? Maybe. What if he leaves the Fantasy friendly Pacers, and goes to a team with a lot of options. He'd likely still be good but could easily drop to 28-30 FPPG. If the owner has to pay a premium to retain him, it starts to get real dicey and could put teams in tough spots. I think there is some risk when we are looking at it from just the angle of how it affects the tip top tier of talent.

5. In some ways the resign tag can off set some of the absolutely absurd contracts that were handed out last summer and the upcoming summer. I mean Noah, Deng, Adams, Mozgov, Bismack, Crabbe, ReggieJ, some of these numbers are ridiculous.

There are probably a bunch of different ways to adjust it. What if you limited the amount of Resign tags versus Franchise tags GM's could use? You could still allow the superior economical value of the Resign tags, but limit it where we allow each team specifically 1 franchise tag and 3 resign tags. Or some version of this where the economical advantage still exists, but you limit it a bit more?

[Oklahoma City Thunder(Rob)]

Good points all the way around. What about a blend of both? Put a modest increase in for the Resign tag, but also limit the tags like specifically 3 resign and 1 franchise or something like this. So it's a blend of all ideas. Or 2 and 2 even. Keeps an advantage on resign, but gets it closer economically and limits the resigns.

[Deleted]

Hey guys! Super pumped for this league to start next year, seems like everyone here is a huge NBA fan and it'll be a great time. I'll just throw out an idea for resigning FAs:

Why not just have free agent auctions at the end of each season? For RFA, the team owning their rights would have the option of matching the highest bid and for UFA, whoever bids the highest claims the player. With an auction, the player is paid exactly what our league deems they're worth based on their past and future production.

I would also be in favor of eliminating any kind of max contracts. They exist in real life because it was demanded by the players union but we don't need to worry about player rights in a fantasy league. With no max contracts there would be more parity in our league than in real life.

[New Orleans Pelicans(Bobby)]

My vote would be for a very subtle change. We are just getting comfortable with all the rules. Let's not totally change this thing before the season even starts. I like what one of the owners suggested above about giving a specific number of franchise versus resign tags. If you are forced to use a franchise tag we are continuing to issue NBA specific contracts. The resign can be a value play. so we could make it 3 resigns and 1 franchise or 2 and 2.....as an idea. I think we have to be careful with inflating the resign tag now. Even if you just bump it to 60%. Do that math. It's expensive. Westbrook's contract would start at 37.2 mill. Players that score 50 points a game will start their contracts at 30 mill. 40 points at 24 mill. Jeff Teague to use the example above would be 22.2 mill at a starting salary. That is a ton of cash for Jeff Teague. That's scary. After running thru that, I don't even know now if I feel great about raising it even a little. Maybe 55%.

And I believe at the end of every season we DO have free agency. Every team can give out 2 contracts. And there will is a RFA period as well.

The commish is going to have to sift thru all these ideas and blend the best plan. That's why he gets paid the big bucks! lol

[Adam Silver(Admin)]

Just so everyone is in the loop, the Exec committee is currently finalizing the Resign Rule provisions. Everyone's input has been taken into consideration, and we are coming to terms on a provision that will satisfy many of your concerns while at the same time upholding the integrity of the league. Trust me, you will not be looking at a huge increase!

We Thank You for your patience.

[Adam Silver(Admin)]

The Resign Rule



The Exec committee has put our heads together and we have came up with a Resign rule that stays along the lines of the original rule, while also taking into account current and future fluctuations in cap.



Similar to the actual NBA structure, players are compensated based on their tenure in the league. This creates a tier system that teams use when determining players contract. We have created a similar structure. Our tiers though will not be based "solely" on the tenure of a player, but yet we will allow our owners decide with player should be payed at what tier.



Previous Resign Rule – A resigned players contract will be determined by taking 50% of the AFPPG of the players most recent 20+ game season. This figure will then be used as the 1st year salary of the players resign contract.



New Resign Rule - A resigned players contract will be determined by taking the assigned Tiered resign percentage of the AFPPG of the players most recent 20+ game season. This figure will then be used as the 1st year salary of the players resign contract.



Resign Percentages



Tier 1 Resign {Rookie Resign} (40%) - Each owner will receive 1 Tier 1 Resign to used on a player coming off of his rookie contract. Similar to the NBA, this caps a players 2nd contract compared to that of a league vet.



Tier 2 Resigns (50%) - Each owner will receive 2 Tier 2 Resigns they can use on any player they choose. I would recommend that these resigns be saved for your star veteran players in efforts of providing as much cap relief as possible.



Tier 3 Resign (55%) - Each owner will receive 1 Tier 3 Resign to used on any player of their choosing. I would recommend this be used on a Key Role Player or a up and coming player coming out of their second contract. Though a little more than a Tier 2 resign, if used on a player who hasn't quite reached their ceiling in terms of AFFPG, value can be had.



Tier 4 Resign (60%) - Each owner will receive 1 Tier 4 Resign to be used on any player of their choosing. I would recommend this be used for the player that you feel is in line for a breakout though past performance wouldn't indicate it. The key to this resign is to tag it to a player who at the time, their production doesn't seem to reflect the value and upside they have down the line. Steph Curry coming out of his rookie contract would be a perfect example of this player. At that time due to injury and surrounding talent, Steph Curry was nowhere close to the player we know today. With a lower AFPPG, this would have been a perfect opportunity to use this resign on Steph, which even at %60, comes out to be crazy value compared to what he became. Not to mention using this resign in this situation allows you to reserve your rookie resign for another young talent coming out of his rookie contract on your roster.





Franchise Tag



Owners are still allowed to use a Franchise Tag, but in doing so, they must select which Resign they will be cancelling out.



Ex. A owner decides to franchise tag Otto Porter because the salary difference between the NBA contract and FFD contract isn't overwhelming, and they would prefer to lock him in for the full of 5 years of his actual NBA contract. In doing this, the owner must decide which resign he will be cancelling out. (In most scenarios, we will probably see owners cancel out their Tier 4 resign due to the higher percentage)





What does this change?



You now have 5 total resigns over 5 years opposed to 4 resigns



The Resign percentages change from (4-50%) to (1-40%, 2-50%, 1-55%, 1-60%)



Owners can now use strategy in assigning resigns. It would be smart to evaluate not only a players current production, but their future projected production as well.



Depending on the player, if using the Tier 4 resign, it compares more heavily to the contract they would be receiving in real life. Which in
turn makes franchising a player a viable option.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

[Deleted]

so these resigns are for a 5 year period, then they renew after 5 years? or how does that work?

[Adam Silver(Admin)]

Yes, the allotment of resigns are for 5 years, then you get another 5

[Deleted]

I like the rule, although I'm already using a Tier 2 on Steph right out the gate.

[Adam Silver(Admin)]

Yeah its just something to help teams retain "elite" talent. You still have UFA bidding, trading and the rookie draft to acquire talent. So in any situation you loose a big time player because of lack of resigns, you still have an opportunity to acquire them through UFA. League wide, this will also help keep talent in the UFA pool during the offseason.