Bird Rights

[Ian Noble]

Bird Rights
Bird Rights are the key to being a powerful team because they allow teams to exceed the salary cap when re-signing players. A team possesses the Bird Rights to a player if that player has 3 years left on their contract when they join the team or if the player is still on their first or second round rookie contract.

Basics

• GMs must claim a player's Bird Rights by posting in the Claim Bird Rights Section at the end of the regular season.
• The deadline date for claiming Bird Rights is the first day of OSFA.
• Teams may exceed the Salary Cap when re-signing players on Bird Rights.
• A player may be re-signed for contracts up to 5 years in length using Bird Rights.

Cap Holds

• If a GM claims a player's Bird Rights a Cap Hold is placed on the team's salaries.
• The amount of money will be equal to a player's previous year's salary, except for expiring rookie-contracts which will be 150% of a player's previous year's salary.

Further Details

• If a player leaves and returns again to a team, the teams Bird Rights to that player are forfeit.
• Players with Bird Rights will tend to sign later during the OSFA period for the realistic reason that real-life players who have Bird Rights also tend to wait, to allow their teams the slight advantage of only having a cap-hold on their salaries whilst looking for other talent.
• Bird Rights carry across from real-life into Dynasty Five. If you have not traded away a player and they have played for your team for at least 3 seasons you will still have their Bird Rights.
• If a GM has already claimed Bird Rights but then wishes to renounce them at a later time during the off season, a reply to the original claim thread will suffice to relinquish Bird Rights to a player and clear a cap hold.

[Ian Noble]

Update:

A team possesses the Bird Rights to a player if that player has 3 years left on their contract when they join the team or if the player is still on their first or second round rookie contract.

[Ian Noble]

Update:

If a GM has already claimed Bird Rights but then wishes to renounce them at a later time during the off season, a reply to the original claim thread will suffice to relinquish Bird Rights to a player and clear a cap hold.

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Bird Rights - Starting 2023
Bird Rights are the key to building a powerful team. Bird Rights (1) allow teams to exceed the salary cap when re-signing players and (2) give the re-signing team an advantage against competitors by allowing the re-signing team to offer five year long contracts instead of four years.

A team possesses the Bird Rights to a player (1) if that player's contract was originally 3 years or more in duration when it began or (2) if that player has been with the re-signing team for three years or more and not been traded.

Basics

• GMs must claim a player's Bird Rights by posting in the Bird Rights section at the end of the regular season.
• Each season GMs may start claiming Bird Rights the day of the Expiring Players Trade Deadline - usually the first day of the Playoffs.
• The deadline date for claiming Bird Rights is the first day of OSFA.

Cap Holds

• If a GM claims a player's Bird Rights a Cap Hold is placed on the team's salaries.
• The amount of money will be equal to a player's previous year's salary, except for expiring rookie-contracts which will be 150% of a player's previous year's salary.

Further Details

• Players with Bird Rights will tend to sign later during the OSFA period for the realistic reason that real-life players who have Bird Rights also tend to wait, to allow their teams the slight advantage of only having a cap-hold on their salaries whilst looking for other talent.
• If a GM has already claimed Bird Rights but then wishes to renounce them at a later time during the off season, a reply to the original claim thread will suffice to relinquish Bird Rights to a player and clear a cap hold.

Based on discussions in this thread from 2021.

[James Kay]

In order to address an oversight in the previous wording of the bird rights rule, the rule is being modified to read as follows:

A team possesses the Bird Rights to a player (1) if that player's most recent contract was originally 3 years or more in duration when it began or (2) if that player re-signed or remained with the same team in the three most recent consecutive off-seasons, starting in the 2021 off-season.

In other words, a team will be able to exercise bird rights when the player's most recent contract was was functionally 3 years or more in duration in hindsight (ex: 1+1+1 with the same team).

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Bird Rights - Starting 2025

In order to make bird rights simpler, and bring them further in line with the NBA's bird rights rules as well as the original discussion of the rules, the rule will be changed in 2025 to read as follows:

A team possesses the Bird Rights to a player if that player has not changed teams via free agency in the two preceding off season free agency periods.