RULES WE ARE NOT FOLLOWING
I don't care about salary matching, its too complicated. If you want to follow it, great but as long as the trade is legal with the hard-cap if your team is hard-capped or you feel confident you can get rid of salary (you better do so) then it's fine.
The hard-cap is either 142 or 143 million, but in that range. WE ARE DOING 143 MILLION. Below are the reasons why you'd be hard-capped. Please look to see if your team is hard-capped from something that happened in real life, or if you did something, or the previous person who controlled the team did something, hard-capping you.
1: SPENDING THE BI-ANNUAL EXCEPTION
If you use the bi-anual exception then you are hard-capped. This means that you can't spend more then 143 million dollars.
2: USING THE NON-TAXPAYER MIDLEVEL
If so, then you are also hard-capped, also at 143 million dollars.
3: DOING A SIGN AND TRADE.
It's if you acquire a player through a sign and trade. EXCAMPLE: 76ers can't sign Lowry because they don't have the money to, so they do a sign and trade with the Raptors to get Lowry. The 76ers would be hard-capped because they got a player through a sign and trade wheres the Raptors wouldn't unless the 76ers gave them a player through a sign and trade. The hard-cap for that is also 143 million. The 76ers in this example also couldn't use the midlevel due to the sign and trade.
SIGNING FREE AGENTS:
You can sign a FA using one of these
1: Using the midlevel exception
2: Using the bi-annual exception (every team has it every other year, find out if your team has it)
3: Using cap space to.
If your team has the cap space of under 112 million then you can sign players.
If you have lets say 100 million dollars, then you can sign a player for up to 12 million. You can sign players the difference of how much your roster costs, and 112 million.
We are forgetting about cap rules for 2 reasons. 1: I don't want to spend so much time learning about it and 2: Don't want to enforce it and it seems really complicated.
HOW THE FREE AGENCY IS GOING TO WORK
First, were disregarding real life as much as possible. This includes trades and free agency signings. We are disregarding it, so it will be in this in game scenario. EVERY TRADE THAT HAPPENS FROM NOW ON IN REAL LIFE IS TO NOT COUNT FOR THIS GAME SENAIO.
So, how we are doing this is that there are tiers. Tier 1 is the highest tier, and 2 4 is the lowest tier. Tier 1 is for the most appealing places with a combinations of how much they can win now, and if the place is appealing. The Nets are in tier 1 because they have a real legitimate chance to win now, and people could go there. The Raptors are tier 4 because nobody wants to go there.
Tier 2 has to pay 5 precent more then anyone in tier 1, tier 3 has to pay 10 precent more then anyone in tier 1 and then tier 4 has to pay 20 precent as much. We believe that it's a fair system that reflects that players do have ego's and want money, so if even a team at the bottom pays enough more, then they will go to that team purely for that reason.
How it will work is that there will be pages where the GMs go to and put bids. After the end, the bidding will end and whoever wins gets that player.
West
Tier 1: Lakers, Suns Jazz
Tier 2: Nuggets, Warriors, Mavericks, Trail Blazers
Tier 3: Clippers, Spurs, OKCPelicans Grizzlies
Tier 4: Kings, Rockets, Timberwolves, Pelicans
East
Tier 1: Nets and Bucks
Tier 2: Pacers, Heat, 76ers, Hawks, 76ers, Knicks
Tier 3: Hornets, Cavs, Pistons, Raptors
Tier 4: Bulls, Magic, Wizards
TEAMS CAN MATCH CONTRACTS FOR ALL ROOKIE DEALS, THE TIER SYSTEM DOESN'T GO INTO PLACE FOR THAT. FOR EXCAMPLE, THE HAWKS CAN MATCH ANY OFFER ANYONE ELSE MIGHT SEND FOR John Collins.
TEAMS IN TIER 4 CAN'T GIVE OFFERS FOR STARS AND CAN GIVE OFFERS TO PLAYERS UP TO 30 AND ANYONE ELSE IF THEY ARE DECLINING OR ARE FINE NOT WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP BUT FOR SOMEONE THAT DOES THEN THEY CAN'T SIGN THAT PLAYER. THEY CAN ALSO GIVE OFFERS TO PLAYERS THAT HAVE DECLINED, LIKE PAUL MILSAP, BUT FOR EXCAMPLE UNLESS ARUOBEY TOTALLY CHANFES THE MAGIC AND BY SOME MIRACLE GETS DAME THEN HE CAN'T GET LOWRY BECAUSE LOWRY IS STILL ARGUABLE A ALL-STAR PLAYER. THERE ARE SOME EXCEPTIONS FOR IT, BUT FOR ANYONE THAT WANTS TO WIN, THEN NO THEY CAN'T SIGN A STAR.
ALSO, IT'D BE RECCOMENDED FOR ALL OF THE GMS IN THIS TO WRITE SOMETHING UPDATING THEIR TEAM, NOT REQUIRED AND TOO BIG OF A DEAL BUT GOOD FOR OTHERS TO KNOW YOUR ASSETS/PLAYERS.