Question about salary cap space

[RockerFellow]

I just started out with dynasty mode and when I sign for a free agent or trade a player, I've got this reply that I don't have salary cap space. What does it mean?

[Yessie]

cause your team is over the salary cap. look for Free agents who want 1.10M for 1 year that is the minimum. when you make trades you have to be close by 20% in salaries and the ratings of the players have to be close as well it more diffucult to make trade this year but alot more fun.

[Jing]

yeah i hate it when that happens

[bbalboy]

Makes trades a lot more interesting because you have to factor more then just talent now, I like it.

[RockerFellow]

OK. Can anyone explain to me the term of salary cap space? cos I just started playing the game, I never play before the NBA series. So I'm a bit dumb to it.

[Metsis]

Salary Cap: The league has imposed a salary cap that is equal to all teams. The cap basically restricts a teams capabilities in two different ways...

1. Free agent signings - You cannot sign a free agent for more than the league minimum for a guy with 'X' years of experience. The league minimum raises with players time in the league. So if you are over the limit the free agents you can sign are few and far between.

2. Trading players - If you are over the cap when trying to complete a trade you have to make sure that the dollars match as well. Not just the talent. The league will shoot down all the trades by teams over the cap that are trying to get away with trading big contracts to small ones.

In situation 2, if the other team is under the cap you can receive/unload a bit more salary from/to the other team.

In real life each team gets a 'Mid level exception' every season that is worth about 4-5 million dollars that you can sign free agents with, but this is not in Live atleast yet.

The trading and free agent stuff is a bit confusing in Live as they should have put clear meters on this stuff. They should have marked the players that are asking for the minimum deals on the free agent signing screen somehow as the minimum value changes with experience. And to the trade screen they should have added some sort of a marker that would indicate when the trade was good according the dollar amounts involved and the cap space so that the user wouldn't go around proposing trades that the league will have to shoot down because of a salary cap issues.

So why and how are most of the teams over the salary cap??? This question has an easy answer... You can always sign your players to a contract as large and as long as you wish (it's a whole other thing if the player would be willing to do so or not), but you can always sign your own guys that have ending contracts no matter how much over the cap you are or not. So your rookies are safe even if you are over the cap.

How to work the salary cap?

1. Trade players with bad contracts away for players that have less time left on their contracts.

2. Make deals to your own players that will most benefit your cap when you need the money.

For example I started a Cavaliers dynasty a while back and was heading into the first off season. I noticed that I had plenty of guys with a single year left on their contracts. So I saw the opportunity to go fish on the free agent market the first off-season. What I did to improve my chances was the following: I traded players like Eric Snow (never liked the guy) and some others as well with multiple years left on their contracts away for more players with this being the last year on their contracts... So I cleared even more space for my free agent scooping operation next off-season... So when the off season started I had to sign couple of guys to come back from all of the last year players... I signed them all to contracts that would gradually grow over the years to save me the money now for my free agent grabbing operation. So when the free agent signing time came, I was 9 million under the cap when I started the season with about 5 million over the cap... There I was with all that cap space and looking at the free agent pool. Wasn't too impressed with the pool as I could have used some quality help... I ended up with Shareef Abdur-Rahim and no one else. I thought that atleast I would get a quality guy for all my dollars.

I am currently in my third year of this dynasty and don't yet know if the back-loaded contracts are going come back and haunt me in the end, but I should have a contender class team on my hands now. I'll have to wait and see what happens with it...

In my example I needed the money then and now, but if you have lots of players with like 3 years left you should give the resigned players front-loaded contracts if the money is less than equally spreading the wealth among the years... Every cent counts...

Be careful of the signing process! Be aware of these facts when you do so... You should always try to work the cap as well as you can... And try to trade guys with bad contracts away... Only when you think you have a championship caliber team you should heavily invest into the future...

Rebuilding process is a daunting process and working the salary cap is crucial in it... The better you work the cap the faster you will get over the rebuilding phases in the dynasty.

Hope this helped... I can go into more detail if you wish about these things...

[RockerFellow]

Thanks for your explanation. Now I have a bit information about what is trading all about. I have also tried it and it works. My team is Miami Heat and I trade my M.Allen to a Chicago Bull player, sorry I can't remember his name. When I put him on a game, he played it very well although seen some weakness.

Yes, I would like to know more about trading and signing free agent stuffs.

[belgian dude]

does someone know how to get a lot of dynasty points by editing the dbf file?
I spended my 50.000 points (code) on season coaches.

[killer_cr0ss0ver]

go to gamingaccess.com, they have a trainer for live 2005. it includes dynasty points and other stuff..

[belgian dude]

thx