The Salary Cap has tarnished this game

[and1nbalive]

The Salary cap is terrible, just terrible in this game and there is no way to turn it off on the Game Cube version. Every team is over the salary cap limit, and you can't make serious trades unless you are taking on more salary to your salary cap. The only way for a trade to be successful is if it lowers the other teams salary cap, this considering both teams are already over the salary cap.

They should have made it more realistic. You cant even really bargain with your players. Every player wants to be overpaid and after you dont sign them they sit in the free agency and there goes the rest of there career, when in real life these players would settle for less money once they realized their market value. Trading does not become easy until 15 year or so into your dynasty when everyone has a lil bit of salary cap room.

[fgrep15]

They need to add real cap rules, have teams have the MLE etc, then it'll work.

[maes]

I was just reading some news about the (real) Sonics and they're ecstatic they can resign everybody on the team including Ray Allen and still be _20_ million under cap to go after some free agents.

I can't imagine having that much cap room...

[Metsis]

Managing the cap is probably one of the harder choires in the Live games. It can be done quite easily and you can get those free agents you so desperately desire...

And trading is easy and can be done when you know what you are doing... There's like a million threads about how the trading is awful and all, but the fact is that it ain't that bad.

You boys need to learn the game before you come bitching here...

[J@3]

Personally the only problem I have with trading is the CPU trades involving draft picks, apparentely the #1 pick in the upcoming draft is only worth Devean George to the Bobcats Otherwise I think trading works. The salary cap isn't the problem as far as free agency goes it's been clearly established that it's retarded. Actually a bit more randomisation would be nice, like in the first season Kirilenko ALWAYS resigns etc... some different players after the first year would be nice.

[Eon Blue Apocalypse]

One thing regarding the salary cap other then what's already been said is during a fantasy draft, where you can't see how much the player is making....yea, you should have an idea how much a player is making but still, why do we have to go through so much trouble....madden is so much better, god...

[debiler]

The problem is that most people don't know how the cap works. You can do good trades once you've figured it out. Real NBA teams have to deal with the salary cap, too. It's hard to sign any good free agents if you're the Knicks, you know.

[furious1]

The cap is total bunk. The other day I was playing my bobcats dynasty (6th season) and in the offseason I saw Andre Kirilinko was a free agent. Well of course like every team I was at or over the cap so I figured he would be back playing for the Jazz. Anyway after training camp I went to do a few minor trade to tweak my roster and noticed that not only was AK playing for the bulls but that they were now 17 mil over the cap. I looked at the news and there it was the bulls signed AK. What a crock! I wonder how many times that had happened that I didnt notice it?

If it's same next year I'm not buying the game.

[Metsis]

Are you sure that AK was playing for the Jazz before he went free agent???

The good players that are in the free agent pool at the end of the free agent signing period automatically sign with the team they were with before becoming free agent...

I'm thinking that AK played for the bulls... This is a good behaviour as there won't be any Tracy MacGradys or Andrei Kirilenkos or Ben Wallaces just sitting out a season because no one had the cap to sign him...

You are just angry because you don't understand the game... You need to learn it to master it and enjoy it fully... Live 2005 is the best hoops game out there.

[furious1]

Are you sure that AK was playing for the Jazz before he went free agent???

The good players that are in the free agent pool at the end of the free agent signing period automatically sign with the team they were with before becoming free agent...

I'm thinking that AK played for the bulls... This is a good behaviour as there won't be any Tracy MacGradys or Andrei Kirilenkos or Ben Wallaces just sitting out a season because no one had the cap to sign him...

You are just angry because you don't understand the game... You need to learn it to master it and enjoy it fully... Live 2005 is the best hoops game out there.

Yeah he was playing for the Jazz the season before. This isn't the first time I've seen this happen.

And thank you for pointing out the possibility that I might be ignorant or stupid I never thought of that possibility. It made me think that perhaps you might be the one that doesn't understand the game and simply enjoy it out of ignorance.

[Metsis]

I'm not saying that you are stupid or anything of the sort...

I'm just saying that if you have not played the games from Live 2000 or something... It's a tough system, I had trouble with it at first... Live 2005 does not have all the needed information so it's a tricky system. If you don't know it, you probably will have much difficulty with it.

AK signed with the bulls although he played for Jazz the season before... So what??? This is a game and it will never be perfect... I don't care if the system is flawed at some points... I don't want to see top tier players available for signing at minimum salary... That is something that is so unrealistic that it just hurts the game... Makes it too easy to load your team with overall 85+ guys and nothing else... And you can keep the guys too as their salaries are ridiculously low.

I like the new system... It ain't perfect... No game will ever be perfect and that's just a fact.

There's still one scenario that might have happened with AK situation. This is a long shot, but did they sing many other players as well? Cause if they were under the cap and signed AK and then autosigned players to go over the cap that 18 million... This is a long shot though...

The game represents the real life only at the very beginning of the dynasty. Everything after that is unrealistic and something that will probably never happen in real life. You shouldn't expect realism from a dynasty mode. It's your world and your playing experience that is based in a real life situation, but everything after that is just fantasy...

I like the good players to sign with some teams automatically as it keeps the game competetive... Think of if TWolves would lose KG to free agency, or Spurs losing TimmyD or Lakers losing Kobe... If no one has the cash to sign them they sign with their original teams.... It's good for competition...

I can, and most of the guys are with me on this one, look through some of flaws to enjoy the game... I don't expect the game to be perfect etc. I expect the game to offer enough realism to be believable and for it to offer a good challenge for me to play... This is the first game in the series when you don't automatically win all the games... This is the best Live yet to come out... If you cannot enjoy it, too bad for you... There's nothing else out there for PC users (as I am)... Your missing on one great game... You shouldn't be playing computer/console games if you want everything to be ultra realistic... Cause none of them are.

The mid-level exception would be nice to have and would really spice up the off-season free agency... And I think it is coming, if not this year, then the next... It would really open up the FA market...

[Madsnyb]

Sorry for the stupid question , but what is "mid-level exception"? I have heard it mentioned several times...

[fgrep15]

It's the calculated average salary in the NBA that year. It is mostly intstrumental for teams over the cap, because if you're over the cap you can only sign your own players, minimum salary players [1 million and under], and your draft picks obviously.

The MLE allows teams who are over the cap to sign other teams free agents, but they can only offer whatever the MLE amount is, so a team over the cap can't sign a big name free agent who will definately make more than 4.5 - 5.5 million, unless they do a sign and trade.

The MLE and Sign and Trading are things that definately need to be added to the game.

[End Boss]

I think the main problem is that the current trade and free agent systems are wide open to exploitation

kk.. I'm doing this right now.. starting with the 1.09 2005 NLSC rosters I'm going into start a dynasty using Atlanta (current worst record in the NBA at 11 - 61) and I'm going to turn it into a team that can win either this years NBA title or next years..

82 game season, 7-7-7-7 playoffs, 12min simmed quaters

starting roster:
O. Ezekie, A. Harrington, J. Smith, J. Childress, T. Lue, T. Gugliotta, P. Drobnjak, D. Smith, R. Ivey, B. Diaw, J. Collier, M. Stewart, K. Willis, T. Delk

1) Sign K.Malone to 2 year 10.50M contract with 10% shift into second year, 5.00M in the first year
2) Trade M. Stewart, K.Willis, and T. Delk to Boston for R. LaFrentz (BOS)
3) Sim one day forward (Malone contract Accepted)
4) Sim two days forward (trade accepted)
5) Sign G. Robinson to 2 year 14.00M contract with 10% shift into second year, 6.67M in the first year
6) Sim one day forward (Robinson contract accepted)
7) Sign J.R. Bremer to 7 year 15.32M contract with 10% shift into seventh year, 1.67M in the first year
8) Sim one day forward (Bremer contract accepted)
9) Trade J. Collier, P. Drobnjak, and O. Ezekie for D. Fisher (GS)
10) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
11) going for a star, Trade R. Lafrentz, A. Harrington for R.Allen (SEA)
12) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
13) go after a starting center, Trade K. Malone and R. Ivey for E. Curry (CHI)
14) Sim two days foward (trade declined)
15) another star, Trade G. Robinson and K. Malone for S. Francis (ORL)
16) Sim one day forward (trade declined)
17) Trade G. Robinson and J. Childress (changed to SF) for M. Redd (MIL)
18) Sim two days forward (trade accepted)
19) Sign K. Clark to 2 year 6.40M contract with 10% shift into second year, 3.05M in the first year
20) Sign K. Gill to 1 year 2.65M contract
21) Sign K. Brown to 1 year 720K contract
22) Sign E. Robinson to 1 year 807K contract
23) Sim one day forward (Clark, Gill, Brown, and Robinson contracts accepted)
24) going for starting center, Trade K. Malone, D. Fisher, R. Ivey for J. Magloire (NO)
25) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
26) Sign S. Williams to 1 year 2.34M contract
27) Sign D. Glover to 2 year 4.53M contract with 10% shift into second year, 2.16M in the first year
28) Sim one day forward (Williams and Glover contacts accepted)
29) going for starting pg, Trade R. Allen and K. Brown for S. Marbury (NY)
30) Sim one day forward (trade rejected)
31) going for starting pg, Trade M. Redd for K. Hinrich (CHI)
32) Sim two days forward (trade accepted)
33) Trade K. Brown and E. Robinson for A. Jefferson (BOS)
34) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
35) Trade K. Clark, K. Gill, and S. Williams for S. Nash (PHO)
36) Sim three days forward (trade rejected)
37) Trade K. Clark, K. Gill, and S. Williams for Q. Richardson (PHO)
38) Sim three days forward (trade accepted)
39) Sign J. Harrington to 4 year 4.00M contract with 10% shift into fourth year, 871K in the first year
40) Sim one day forward (Harrington contract accepted)
41) Trade R. Allen, A. Jefferson, B. Diaw for V. Carter, C. Robinson, B. Thomas (NJ)
42) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
43) Trade J. Bremer and D. Smith for M. Jaric (LAC)
44) Sim one day forward (trade accepted)
45) Trade C. Robinson for K. Rush (CHA)
46) Sim two days forward (trade rejected)
47) Trade C. Robinson, M. Jaric, and J. Smith for E. Okafor, T. Smith, C. Alexander (CHA)
48) Sim two days forward (trade accepted) key first unit completed (J. Magloire, E. Okafor, Q. Richardson, V. Carter, K. Hinrich).. remainder of trading for the year to maximise cap room for free agent signing in the off season
49) Trade D. Glover and B. Thomas (both 2 year contracts) for E. Campbell (DET)
50) Sim two days forward (trade accepted)
51) Release T. Smith and C. Alexander
52) Sign B. Drew to 1 year 807K contract
53) Sign A. Storey to 1 year 385K contract
54) Sign L. Baxter to 1 year 620K contract
55) Sign V. Stepania to 1 year 820K contact
56) Sim one day forward (Drew, Storey, Baxter, and Stepania contracts accepted)... I'm basically done for the year (11.332M in expiring contracts)
57) Sim to the end of the season (finished regular season 43-39, beaten by Detroit in Eastern Conf Semis)
58) Off-Season begins (10M free cap space) opt to resign no players and forfeit both draft picks
59) Sign T. Murphy to 7 year 39.61M contract with 10% shifting to seventh year, 4.35M in the first year
60) Sign V. Radmonovic to 6 year 24.93M contract with 10% shifting to sixth year, 3.32M in the first year
61) Sim three days forward (Murphy and Radmonovic contracts accepted)
62) Sign L. Chalmers, E. Robinson, R. Mason Jr, J. Moiso, S. Parker, L. Clifton, M. Favreau to 1 year contracts
63) Sim three days forward (Chalmers, Robinson, Mason Jr, Moiso, Parker, Clifton, and Favreau contracts accepted).. then sim to trade section of off-season
64) Trade Moiso, Clifton, and Favreau for M.Pietrus (GS) - trade accepted
65) Trade M. Pietrus, T. Murphy, and R. Mason Jr for Y. Ming (HOU) - trade accepted
66) Trade L. Chalmers, E. Robinson, S. Parker for T. Allen (BOS) - trade accepted..

So starting the second year with 9 players with an average overall rating of 73 and an average age of 24.5 that looks like:

C - Yao Ming
PF - Emeka Okafor
SF - Quinten Richardson
SG - Vince Carter
PG - Kirk Hinrich
6 - Jamal Magloire
7 - Vladimir Radmonovic
8 - Tony Allen
9 - Junior Harrington

and with a little more effort in the past I've been able to create lineups like (C - Garnett, PF - Duncan, SF - LeBron, SG - Kobe, PG - Wade)... It's mildly ridiculous... but strangely addictive

you might argue that it's up to the player whether they abuse the system or not.. but ultimately as a GM you want to try and squeeze through deals and get the most bang for your buck.. thats the only way you can stay competitive.. and if the CPU is giving it away too easy then it seriously detracts from the realism

[Madsnyb]

Yeah, I agree that it's way too easy to be effective on the trading market, but this has gotten better and better with each Live, especially from 2004 to 2005. If this trend continues, EA could give us an almost as flawless trading system as is possible by next year.

I personally hope they implement something like team chemistry, and that this would go down a lot if you traded away your whole team. Mercury, for instance, had 66 transactions in a year, and this should make players unhappy as they would be afraid of being traded themselves. This should make the trading/free agent system a lot more realistic.

Btw, thanks for the response fgrep

[Metsis]

As you can see... The trading is far from difficult and the system can still be exploitet as it is...

We need some sort of a factor that shows how happy etc. The players are and the fact that it should influence the gameplay as a bunch of new guys will have trouble adjusting to new game styles etc.

Just look at Webber and how he did in SacTo and how he's doing with the Sixers... Sixers clearly don't know how to use Webber as effectively. And as the players are only people, they don't get always get along as well and this should effect the happiness too... I've been going for this for a long time... And really something like this should be done just to make people really build their teams more realistically...

Also I've going for a leadership/teacher stuff too. So the older and maybe on the twilight side of their careers would have a purpose too. Currently a strategy with trading old guys for younger guys is the way to go. If your younger guys would benefit from the presense of a veteran guy, you'd keep some of the around wouldn't you? Also if a veteran player would provide leadership improving the entire teams performance or just make all the guys a bit happier to improve their game that way you'd keep them around?

Right now, a guy who's overall is dropping 4-5 points per season is somehting to get rid off... Try to get something for him while he's still worth something...

If the guy would improve your performance and would help the younger guys improve faster I would certainly keep them around. There could be a leadership rating for each player and it would show how good he is at getting the team going even further... Sort of like an assistant coach or something... And this rating would go up every season for most of the guys... Maybe it could represent the player ability to get along with different types of people, meaning that their happiness would improve too and thus improving their game...

Maybe it's too layered system, but something needs to be done about guys that revamp their teams in a week and about effect of the veteran players in the game... Veterans are important to young players...Yao has Patrick Ewing and Dikembe Mutombo instructing him and I bet you that having two of the best ceters of the nineties around has certainly helped bring his game along...

[End Boss]

I see two main faults.. atleast these are the two main strategies I use to exploit

1) The Pyramid Trading Scandal
The basic principle is that you start with many shit players. You trade those many shit players for some mediocre players. You trade those mediocre players for a few talented players, and then you trade those few talented players for a star and then repeat the process and trade two stars for a superstar (kobe, kg, tdunc, lebron, shaq, etc), or some variation. The bottom line is that as long as you can sign free agent trade fodder and there are enough teams with free roster space so you can trade multiple lower quality players for a higher quality player, then you can pretty much improve your team exponentially. Of course it reaches saturation when either the free agent pool has dried up or all teams have full rosters or both. But then a new season brings all new roster space and a replenished free agent pool so you can start it all again. On the surface this problem is a tricky one to solve.. because on paper most of the time you're offering the CPU controlled teams pretty reasonable and often tempting deals. However, where the whole pyramid scandal should unravel is where the CPU accepts trade fodder you've just signed from the free agent pool instead of going to the free agent pool and signing those players it needs itself.. It would also help if free agents were more discerning as to which team accepted contracts with..

2) Hammering Position Trades
Just because a team wants one PG shouldn't mean that they go crazy for deals involving 3 point gaurds.. I've been doing this for years.. since '99 or before.. sometimes i even change a players primary position just so I can hammer through a trade of 3 players with the same position.. it's really quite absurd.. the CPU should be able to decide that one player in a trade would satisfy their needs for that particular position and then assign lower "need" to other players of the same position in the same trade..

[J@3]

sometimes i even change a players primary position just so I can hammer through a trade of 3 players with the same position.

Lol I did that before, I changed Gasol to PG and traded him.

[Andrew]

One way to avoid problem number one would be to implement a few of the other trade restrictions, specifically the rule that states a player can't be traded until a certain point in the season/until after a certain number of days (usually 60). That would prevent the user from simply signing players and trading them away almost immediately.

Just to be fair to users who do not want such a challenge, perhaps Dynasty Mode could be customised when it comes to all the salary cap and roster management rules and restrictions.

As for problem two, the game needs to recognise whether a player's skills, probably through his ratings. Even if you made a superficial change to a player's position, the game would recognise that your big man with a great post up game but no handles is not really a point guard, even if you've designated him as one.

However, that shouldn't be too restrictive. A player who is capable of playing either forward spot and maybe even centre might take slide over to another position when he joins his new team. In this case, changing a player's position isn't necessarily cheating, but rather offering the CPU a player it can recognise as someone who can fill a position they're weak at.

The problem with implementing such a system is that it would be difficult to restrict the game to prevent the exploit but allow enough freedom for the fair change to work. I'm not sure how the restriction could work in the first place.

[End Boss]

I think that any implementation of trade restrictions or attemtps to address the two exploits I raised should be optional.. possibly having a series of sliders and check box options so that you can get exactly what you want from a dynasty.. hells.. i know i get a lot of cheap thrills from creating my uber teams, simming through the season and then playing the last game of the finals.. it's all in the name of fun after all.. but those who want realism should reasonably have their needs granted considering this game is primarily considered a basketball simulation

[Andrew]

Absolutely. A high level of customisation from sliders to Dynasty settings ensures that everyone can choose just what kind of game they want.

[J@3]

Even if you made a superficial change to a player's position, the game would recognise that your big man with a great post up game but no handles is not really a point guard, even if you've designated him as one.

With Gasol, after I changed him from PF to PG he went from 87 to 83, but because the other teams interest bar was full (because they needed a PG) I could trade him for anyone I wanted.

[Metsis]

Gasol is just a bad example here... He's pretty good with the ball and his passing ain't too bad so he could be a point guard, if you only look at it from the point guard point of view... I mean that a guy with dribbling 60 and passing 55 and stealing 50 could be a point guard, a very bad one, but still a point guard.

I think the AI should calculate the value for each player for each position, so the AI would know that Shaq has an overall for C, PF, SF, SG, PG positions. And the AI would count the intrest stuff according to these...

For center, it would count Inside Scoring, Blocking, Strength, Rebounding. Power forward: it would be inside scoring, blocking, rebounding, stealing.
Small forward: field goals, steals, passing, rebounding
Shooting guard: field goals, three, steal, pass
Point guard: pass, steal, dribble, field goals

Or something along these lines... So the AI would see straight away how good the players is on position specific ratings and would know better on what positions are the players best at playing and distribute the postions along those lines...

Trade restrictions would be nice to have... More rules to give more challenge... Draining the free agent pool is just dumb... Cheating at it's best... Pyramid schemers are cheaters... I basically never do it...