salary cap help
Mon May 12, 2008 1:09 pm
hi guys ...im just a newbie here..i've been playing nba live 08 dynasty mode but i cant understand the concept of the salary cap. I play the suns as my team and I have a negative salary cap. I cant trade or sign any free agents because of this. Can anyone please help me understand the concept of the salary cap?? what should i do if i want to trade players or sign some free agents??? thanks guys..
Mon May 12, 2008 1:39 pm
This has been talked about at length before but this is a quick rundown:
Each team has a salary cap which is essentially a budget for player salaries. The NBA's salary cap is referred to as a "soft cap" because teams can exceed it (ie have negative cap room in NBA Live) but doing so places certain restrictions on the money they can offer to free agents and trades they can make.
When you're over the salary cap as you are and you're trying to make trades, you need to make sure the salaries match as closely as possible. The total salaries being offered by one team cannot be more than 125% of the salaries coming the other way, eg if you're trading $5 mil in contracts, the other team must give you contracts that can be no more than $6.25 mil ($5 mil x 1.25) or less than $4 mil ($5 mil / 1.25). Since you're fairly new to the concept though, I would recommend simply trying to get the salaries as close as possible (eg $5.5 million for $5.3 million).
When it comes to free agency, if you're over the cap you're not going to be able to sign anyone who's looking for a big contract. NBA Live 08 does present you with the option of signing players to veteran minimum contracts (which not everyone will accept) as well as the Mid Level Exception which often allows you to sign one of the better free agents. Players also have "Bird Rights", which allows you to re-sign your own players despite being over the cap.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask, otherwise you might want to look around a bit at some of the explanations and tips that have been posted.
Each team has a salary cap which is essentially a budget for player salaries. The NBA's salary cap is referred to as a "soft cap" because teams can exceed it (ie have negative cap room in NBA Live) but doing so places certain restrictions on the money they can offer to free agents and trades they can make.
When you're over the salary cap as you are and you're trying to make trades, you need to make sure the salaries match as closely as possible. The total salaries being offered by one team cannot be more than 125% of the salaries coming the other way, eg if you're trading $5 mil in contracts, the other team must give you contracts that can be no more than $6.25 mil ($5 mil x 1.25) or less than $4 mil ($5 mil / 1.25). Since you're fairly new to the concept though, I would recommend simply trying to get the salaries as close as possible (eg $5.5 million for $5.3 million).
When it comes to free agency, if you're over the cap you're not going to be able to sign anyone who's looking for a big contract. NBA Live 08 does present you with the option of signing players to veteran minimum contracts (which not everyone will accept) as well as the Mid Level Exception which often allows you to sign one of the better free agents. Players also have "Bird Rights", which allows you to re-sign your own players despite being over the cap.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask, otherwise you might want to look around a bit at some of the explanations and tips that have been posted.