Free agency

In basketball, free agency works in two ways. The rules depend on the season phase. For the general idea, see Waivers and free agents.

The Free agency screen shows which phase you are in. It reads Open market in season, Offseason · Round 1 of 6 (and so on) during the offseason window, and Market closed otherwise.

Over the cap, you can sign only your own free agents and players on minimum deals. A full roster of 15 refuses every signing. Release or trade a player first. See Your team.

Regular season: talk to the player

In season, the market is open and a signing is instant. There are no sealed rounds. You negotiate with the player.

1. Open Free agency. The board lists every unsigned player with his position, OVR and Asking price. It also shows five skill grades on the 20-80 scale: Score, Shoot, Pass, Reb and Def, for Scoring, Shooting, Passing, Rebounding and Defense. Select a header to sort. Filter by position if you need to. The position filter also has My needs, which shows only the positions where your club is thin.
2. Select Bid on the row of the player you want. The Offer panel opens.
3. Select Talk to him. Opening a talk signs nothing. The panel shows the price and years where the talk opens, and how he reads: keen to sign, open, reluctant or not interested.
4. Under Offer per season, choose an amount.
5. Select Make offer, then confirm. If he agrees, he signs at once and joins your roster.
6. If he does not agree, he may answer with a counter. The panel shows how many tries are left. Choose a new amount and select Make offer again. When you spend the last try, he walks away. Talks close for a time, and the panel shows the calendar date when he reopens.

If he will not sign the years you ask for, the panel tells you how many years he wants.

Where you're thin

The Where you're thin panel sits above the board, in season and in the offseason. It lists the positions where your club is short. Select a position in the panel to show only the free agents who play it.

Offseason: sealed bids

After the draft, free agents sign through sealed bids. The window has six rounds. The screen shows the round you are in.

1. Press Advance: free agency after the draft. The press stops before the first round. In a league run by hand, the last pick of the draft moves the league to free agency by itself, and the draft room hides its Advance button. See Run your season.
2. Open Free agency.
3. Select Bid on a player. In the panel, set Annual value and Years. The Annual value slider starts at his ask. It runs from 65% of the ask (never under the league minimum) up to two times the ask. You can offer another team's free agent at most four years.
4. Select Place bid, then confirm. A bid is not a signing. Bids settle when the round resolves, and the best legal bid wins. You do not see other bids.
5. Advance to resolve the round. Your bids lists each result: Pending, Signed, No deal, or a loss that names the team that signed him.

Each round is one calendar day. Round 1 is Jul 1, round 2 is Jul 2, and so on.

The Asking price falls each round that a player stays unsigned. It falls from his market price in round 1 to the league minimum in round 6. The board does not show the least he takes. Each player has a hidden floor that depends on his mood. A bid a little under the ask can win, and a bid at the ask can lose.

Offer groups

An offer group lets you bid on several men and sign at most one of them in a round. Under Offer group, select + New group to start a group, or select an existing group, such as Group A. Select No group for a bid that stands alone. When one bid in a group wins, the game drops the other bids in that group. Your bids shows a dropped bid as, for example, "Dropped: you signed another man from Group A".

If the league refuses a bid, the panel says which signing rule stopped it.

Two-way deals

When your league runs v2 cap rules, the panel also offers Sign to two-way. It is a minimum contract for one of your 3 bench slots. The player can play up to 50 game days with the main team, and not in the playoffs. Only a player whose ask is near the minimum can sign one, and only while the market is open, not during the sealed rounds. A player nobody signed in the sealed rounds asks the minimum, so he qualifies. A new v2 league opens with every club already holding 3 two-way players, yours included, and about 45 free agents left in the pool. To check which cap rules your league uses, ask the commissioner to read the League rules card, or see League rules and the commissioner.