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BSL Free Agency — How It Works
Free agency is a live app now. You go into an agent's office, you make an offer, the player decides. No more posting bids in a thread and waiting on me to sort it out.
Here's everything you need.
Where: Free Agency on the forums (also linked under Roster Management)
The short version
That's it. Everything below is the detail.
Making an offer
Every offer has:
There are shortcut buttons: 1-Year Min, 2-Year Min, and Set to Max. The two Min buttons lock the form so you can't accidentally fat-finger it — click again to unlock. Set to Max figures out the correct ceiling for you.
A few things that will bite you:
One active offer per team per player. Submit a new one and it replaces your old one. There's a Remove / Rescind offer button if you want out entirely — but see the relationship section, because pulling an offer costs you.
You can have offers out on as many players as you want. Nothing is reserved until somebody signs.
The clock
This is the part people always ask about.
The clock starts when the player gets his first offer, and it does not reset. You cannot push a signing back by throwing a late offer at him. If you want in, get in early.
The clock runs somewhere between 24 and 72 hours, and how long depends on how good the leading offer is relative to what the guy thinks he's worth. Blow him away and he signs fast. Lowball the whole market and he sits and waits.
When it expires, he signs with the highest-scoring offer on the table. If every team that bid on him is roster-full by then, he goes back to available.
If every offer on a player gets pulled, his clock clears and he goes back on the board with no deadline.
The system checks clocks every few minutes on its own. You don't need to do anything.
When I lock FA, every clock pauses where it is and you'll see "Paused (Nh left)" instead of a countdown. Offers and rescinds are disabled until I unlock. The remaining time is preserved exactly — nobody loses their spot.
Cap rules
Contract types
Bird ceilings can never exceed the player max. Bird rights only show up when you're re-signing your own player — the app detects the type off his Bird years automatically.
So the real longest contract in the league is 5 years, and only on a Max or a Larry Bird deal.
Cap space
Nothing is deducted when you make an offer. Money only moves when a player actually signs. That means you can absolutely have more offers out than you can pay for, and that's fine — but understand what happens next.
When a signing changes your cap, the system cleans up your other offers automatically:
Every one of those auto-withdrawals costs you agent relationship. So think about how many irons you have in the fire.
MLE and BAE
Set up at the start of FA. If you're at or over the cap you get the full non-taxpayer MLE. If you have room, you get the taxpayer MLE. BAE is zeroed out if you used it last season.
They're mutually exclusive. Use the MLE, your BAE goes to zero. Use the BAE, your MLE goes to zero. Pick a lane.
Max salary
Three brackets by years of service: 0–6, 7–9, and 10+.
Minimums
Scale by years of service, 0 through 10+. Anything past 10 years is treated as 10. The full table is posted in the app.
Roster rules
15 players, hard cap on the roster. You cannot submit an offer at 15/15 — you'll get told the roster is full.
If you hit 15, every pending offer you have is withdrawn, with the relationship hit on each one. And if you're full when a guy you bid on makes his decision, your offer is skipped entirely.
Your roster count is read off your live roster page plus anyone you've already signed in FA. It's in the Front Office strip as N/15 and turns red when you're maxed.
Cutting
There's a Cut button on My Roster.
How players actually decide
Money matters. Money is not the only thing that matters. I'm not publishing the formula, but here's what's in the room when the agent evaluates your offer:
Him: loyalty, greed, play-for-winner, age, experience, Bird years, position, hometown, prior team, how long he played for you.
The deal: total value, average salary, year-one money, length, the raise structure, contract type, and each clause — player option, team option, no-trade.
How good he is: current and future rating relative to others at his position, plus his production.
Your team: win rating, last year's record, what role he'd actually play for you (Starter / Role / Bench / Inactive), and whether you have a real need at his spot.
The market: how many comparable guys are still out there at his position, and pressure from other teams bidding on him.
His résumé: last season's awards. A guy coming off hardware asks for more, so the same dollars score worse.
Preferences you can't see: every player has pre-rolled gates around winning, loyalty, and playing time. These are locked in at the start of the season and don't reroll. Some guys just won't sign somewhere no matter what you offer. Some will cap you at 4 years because they're unhappy.
Your relationship with the agent. More on that next.
The practical takeaway: the agent tells you where you stand. He reacts to every offer. If he says you're close, you're close. If he's cold, add money or add years or go find someone else. That dialogue is real information, not flavor text.
Agents and relationships
Every free agent has an agent, and every agent has a relationship with your team. Starts at 50 for everyone, moves from there, and shows on a badge in the office — Strategic Partner all the way down to Toxic.
Goes up when you: sign a guy, make a strong offer, revise an offer upward.
Goes down when you: rescind an offer, get an offer auto-withdrawn, lowball, or revise your own offer down.
Relationship shifts a player's preference gates by up to about 10 points in either direction. It won't turn a bad offer into a good one — but in a close race it decides things. And that agent probably represents more than one guy you want.
Don't spam offers you plan to pull.
What happens when someone signs
Everything updates on its own:
The page itself
Front Office — your team, season, roster count, available cap, committed money, MLE, BAE, record, and win rating.
Free Agents — the board. Search, sort (grades, potential, individual skills, personality, who's about to sign), position chips with Bigs/Wings/Guards presets, and filters for agent, prior team, status, potential, and age. Each row shows grades, personality letters, prior team, a live countdown, and the Negotiate button.
Negotiations — your active ones, with the pending offer and a way out.
Signed — everything that's been signed this FA, with all years and totals. Public. Everyone can see what everyone paid.
My Roster — your live roster with salaries and the Cut button.
Things that will save you a headache
Free agency is a live app now. You go into an agent's office, you make an offer, the player decides. No more posting bids in a thread and waiting on me to sort it out.
Here's everything you need.
Where: Free Agency on the forums (also linked under Roster Management)
The short version
- Open Free Agency. Every free agent has an agent attached to him.
- Hit Negotiate on a guy you want. That opens the agent's office.
- Put in your years, starting salary, raise %, contract type, and any options.
- Submit. The agent talks to you — actually read what he says, he's telling you where you stand.
- When the player's clock runs out, he signs the offer he likes best. Not the biggest. The best.
That's it. Everything below is the detail.
Making an offer
Every offer has:
- Years — 1 to 5, depending on contract type
- Starting salary — year one, in real dollars
- Raise % — how the salary moves each year. Can be negative if you want a declining deal.
- Contract type — Standard, Max, Min, MLE, BAE, or Bird if he's your own guy
- Player Option / Team Option / No-Trade Clause — check the boxes you want
There are shortcut buttons: 1-Year Min, 2-Year Min, and Set to Max. The two Min buttons lock the form so you can't accidentally fat-finger it — click again to unlock. Set to Max figures out the correct ceiling for you.
A few things that will bite you:
- Raises are capped. ±8% on Bird and Early Bird deals, ±5% on everything else.
- Options need a multi-year deal. You can't put a player option on a 1-year contract.
- You can't fake a Max. If you pick "Max," it has to actually be at the max. Use Standard for anything less.
- Every single year of the deal has to clear the league minimum for that season, not just year one.
- If you offer a 1- or 2-year deal at the minimum, the system just calls it a Min contract. On 2-year minimums it'll auto-bump the raise so year two still clears the scale, and it'll tell you it did.
One active offer per team per player. Submit a new one and it replaces your old one. There's a Remove / Rescind offer button if you want out entirely — but see the relationship section, because pulling an offer costs you.
You can have offers out on as many players as you want. Nothing is reserved until somebody signs.
The clock
This is the part people always ask about.
The clock starts when the player gets his first offer, and it does not reset. You cannot push a signing back by throwing a late offer at him. If you want in, get in early.
The clock runs somewhere between 24 and 72 hours, and how long depends on how good the leading offer is relative to what the guy thinks he's worth. Blow him away and he signs fast. Lowball the whole market and he sits and waits.
When it expires, he signs with the highest-scoring offer on the table. If every team that bid on him is roster-full by then, he goes back to available.
If every offer on a player gets pulled, his clock clears and he goes back on the board with no deadline.
The system checks clocks every few minutes on its own. You don't need to do anything.
When I lock FA, every clock pauses where it is and you'll see "Paused (Nh left)" instead of a countdown. Offers and rescinds are disabled until I unlock. The remaining time is preserved exactly — nobody loses their spot.
Cap rules
Contract types
| Type | Max starting salary | Years | Raise cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | your available cap space | 1–4 | ±5% |
| Max | the max for his years of service | 1–5 | ±5% |
| Larry Bird (3+ Bird years, your guy) | full max | 1–5 | ±8% |
| Early Bird (exactly 2 Bird years) | 175% of his last salary, or ~105% of league average — whichever is higher | 2–4 | ±8% |
| Non-Bird (0–1 Bird years) | 120% of his last salary, or 120% of the min | 1–4 | ±5% |
| Min | the scale minimum for his experience | 1–2 | set by scale |
| MLE | non-taxpayer MLE, capped by what's left in your balance | 1–4 | ±5% |
| BAE | bi-annual exception, capped by your balance | 1–2 | ±5% |
Bird ceilings can never exceed the player max. Bird rights only show up when you're re-signing your own player — the app detects the type off his Bird years automatically.
So the real longest contract in the league is 5 years, and only on a Max or a Larry Bird deal.
Cap space
- Cap space is only checked on Standard and Max offers. Bird, Min, MLE, and BAE go over the cap. That's the whole point of them.
- Only year one counts against your cap. Not the total.
- Your cap number is read live off your roster page — the sum of year-one salaries plus any dead money in your Cut Players table.
Nothing is deducted when you make an offer. Money only moves when a player actually signs. That means you can absolutely have more offers out than you can pay for, and that's fine — but understand what happens next.
When a signing changes your cap, the system cleans up your other offers automatically:
- Standard/Max offers get reduced to whatever you can still afford
- If you can't even afford the minimum anymore, the offer is withdrawn
- MLE/BAE offers get trimmed to your remaining balance
- Bird and Min offers are left alone
Every one of those auto-withdrawals costs you agent relationship. So think about how many irons you have in the fire.
MLE and BAE
Set up at the start of FA. If you're at or over the cap you get the full non-taxpayer MLE. If you have room, you get the taxpayer MLE. BAE is zeroed out if you used it last season.
They're mutually exclusive. Use the MLE, your BAE goes to zero. Use the BAE, your MLE goes to zero. Pick a lane.
Max salary
Three brackets by years of service: 0–6, 7–9, and 10+.
Minimums
Scale by years of service, 0 through 10+. Anything past 10 years is treated as 10. The full table is posted in the app.
Roster rules
15 players, hard cap on the roster. You cannot submit an offer at 15/15 — you'll get told the roster is full.
If you hit 15, every pending offer you have is withdrawn, with the relationship hit on each one. And if you're full when a guy you bid on makes his decision, your offer is skipped entirely.
Your roster count is read off your live roster page plus anyone you've already signed in FA. It's in the Front Office strip as N/15 and turns red when you're maxed.
Cutting
There's a Cut button on My Roster.
- 0-experience 2nd round picks cut free. Salary comes completely off the books.
- Everybody else leaves dead money. All remaining years go into the Cut Players table on your roster page and keep counting against you.
- Cutting voids any options or no-trade clause on the deal.
- A forum post gets made from your account — a reply in the Cut/Extend 2nd Rounders thread for free cuts, or a new thread in Signings/Cuts/Position Changes for everyone else.
How players actually decide
Money matters. Money is not the only thing that matters. I'm not publishing the formula, but here's what's in the room when the agent evaluates your offer:
Him: loyalty, greed, play-for-winner, age, experience, Bird years, position, hometown, prior team, how long he played for you.
The deal: total value, average salary, year-one money, length, the raise structure, contract type, and each clause — player option, team option, no-trade.
How good he is: current and future rating relative to others at his position, plus his production.
Your team: win rating, last year's record, what role he'd actually play for you (Starter / Role / Bench / Inactive), and whether you have a real need at his spot.
The market: how many comparable guys are still out there at his position, and pressure from other teams bidding on him.
His résumé: last season's awards. A guy coming off hardware asks for more, so the same dollars score worse.
Preferences you can't see: every player has pre-rolled gates around winning, loyalty, and playing time. These are locked in at the start of the season and don't reroll. Some guys just won't sign somewhere no matter what you offer. Some will cap you at 4 years because they're unhappy.
Your relationship with the agent. More on that next.
The practical takeaway: the agent tells you where you stand. He reacts to every offer. If he says you're close, you're close. If he's cold, add money or add years or go find someone else. That dialogue is real information, not flavor text.
Agents and relationships
Every free agent has an agent, and every agent has a relationship with your team. Starts at 50 for everyone, moves from there, and shows on a badge in the office — Strategic Partner all the way down to Toxic.
Goes up when you: sign a guy, make a strong offer, revise an offer upward.
Goes down when you: rescind an offer, get an offer auto-withdrawn, lowball, or revise your own offer down.
Relationship shifts a player's preference gates by up to about 10 points in either direction. It won't turn a bad offer into a good one — but in a close race it decides things. And that agent probably represents more than one guy you want.
Don't spam offers you plan to pull.
What happens when someone signs
Everything updates on its own:
- He comes off the FA list pages
- He's added to your roster page with abilities and salaries
- His player page gets the new team and his year-by-year salaries
- Your team salary and cap room lines are recalculated
- Any option or NTC gets registered and the option pages rebuild
- A signing announcement posts to the FA signings thread from your team account
The page itself
Front Office — your team, season, roster count, available cap, committed money, MLE, BAE, record, and win rating.
Free Agents — the board. Search, sort (grades, potential, individual skills, personality, who's about to sign), position chips with Bigs/Wings/Guards presets, and filters for agent, prior team, status, potential, and age. Each row shows grades, personality letters, prior team, a live countdown, and the Negotiate button.
Negotiations — your active ones, with the pending offer and a way out.
Signed — everything that's been signed this FA, with all years and totals. Public. Everyone can see what everyone paid.
My Roster — your live roster with salaries and the Cut button.
Things that will save you a headache
- Get in early. The clock starts on the first offer and never resets. Sniping doesn't work here.
- Read the agent. He's telling you the answer.
- Don't over-extend. Offers don't reserve money, but when your cap moves the cleanup is automatic and it costs you relationship every time.
- Bird rights are worth real money. Higher ceiling, bigger raises, an extra year, and no cap check. Know which of your own guys have them before you spend cap space elsewhere.
- Years are leverage. Not everyone wants the longest deal, and some guys are hard-capped at 4 whether you like it or not.
- Watch your roster count. Hitting 15 nukes every offer you have out.