BGM,SF3,or anyone else who knows..... What do the Bird Years mean? Take Zo for example. his contract is up this year, and his bird years are 4, what does that mean?
if you have him and his bird years, then you can go over the cap to resign him. Only problem is that you wont have any capspace as a result.
Contract Rules: The maximum raise from one year to the next is 10% for regular offers and 12.5% for teams offering contracts to their former players who have three or more bird years. The maximum contract length is 6 years for regular offers and 7 years for teams offering contracts to their former players who have three or more bird years.
This does include the Free Agency bid period. Your team could actually be above the cap and sign your former player to the max. Only the team that had the player last can sign the guy to the deal though. Example: IF Gary Payton becomes a FA, the Sonics can't sign him to the max with 12.5%, but the Warriors (assuming he sticks with them) can... I apologize if I wasn't clear enough about this in the past...
BGM, so you are saying: If Jermaine O'Neal won't resign with me before free agency, I can offer him a MAX contract plust 12.5% raises? So a lot of people shouldnt worry as much about losing their free agents, right?
Unfortunately scf, you can't do this with O'Neal because he has 0 bird years. When he enters FA, he'll only have 1 bird year, so you won't be able to offer him the max like in the Payton example. You need at least 3 bird years.
