Resource Page Sandbox

Note: This page is a Sandbox used to test formatting for potential updates to the Team Staff Resource. This page is very much a WIP, and you should use the main resource page or speak to the committee or commissioners if you have any questions.

The Team Staff Resource is a guide to the yearly schedule of the Furry Basketball Association, and team staff members' responsibilities throughout the season.

Team Staff

Team Staff members are responsible for running their team throughout the year. Team Staff are divided up into two Roles: Primary Contact and Secondary Contact.

Primary Contact

The Primary Contact (PC) has final say on any and all decisions regarding their team.

Ahead of each off-season, contributors can apply to be PCs for any team that does not currently have one. A PC is entitled to continue managing their team for 3 seasons. After this, they can choose to continue to run their chosen team, but other contributors can request to take over for them.

The PC is responsible for many tasks, all of which are outlined in further detail below. Here is an abbreviated list of yearly tasks that PCs perform:

• Free agent offers
• Draft night selections
• Day to day roster rotations (gameplan for games and moving injured players to the bench)
• Respond to trade requests (either accepting, denying, or negotiating them)
• Submit player stat boosts (happens 3 times a year)
• Be reachable on Discord for your team's contributors

Secondary Contact

The Secondary Contact (SC for short) is an individual that the Primary Contact selects to serve as a backup in cases where the Primary Contact is unreachable. The Secondary Contact may also take on specific tasks as agreed upon with the Primary Contact.

Each PC and SC pair decide how they'd like to divide up team responsibilities. For example, the SC might act as a head coach, and handle day to day roster updates. Or perhaps the Secondary Contact handles all signing and player boosts, leaving the Primary Contact to work on developing storylines for the team.

While the PC and SC determine how to divide responsibilities together, the Primary Contact is ultimately responsible for the team. The Commissioners and Committee will look to the Primary Contact first to resolve matters involving the team.

The FBA Season

The FBA calendar has four main phases: Free Agency (also known as the Off-Season), Preseason, the Regular Season, and the Playoffs (also known as the Post-Season).

Free Agency

Free agency normally takes place in late summer and early fall. It is the season when team staff build their team for the coming season.

The main components of free agency are making contract offers, negotiating trades with other teams, and planning for Draft Night. All of these actions are done while also managing the team's salary cap, both for the current and upcoming seasons.

For the rest of this section, we will play out some free agency actions from a made up FBA team, The Whitehorse Blackouts, during the 2021 free agency period. These examples are contained in the Example boxes.

Salary Caps

The salary cap is the maximum amount of money that a team can pay out on players' contacts in a given year.

Every year, teams have a budget of $90m to spend on players' salaries. At the start of free agency, some of this budget will already be allocated to spend on a team's existing contracts, as well as their draft picks for the coming season. The money that's left is what is available for offering new contracts.

Example

Each team's page contains a table that details their salary for the current season. Below is the salary cap table for the Whitehorse Blackouts at the beginning of free agency. 2021 Budget for Total Cap Contracts Paid Buyouts Available Whitehorse Blackouts 90.0 71.5 0.0 18.5 In the above example, the Blackouts have a total of $90.0m for the season. $71.5m is already allocated for their players' pre-existing contracts, as well as the salaries of any players they will draft this season. As shown, this leaves the Blackouts with $18.5m to use at the start of free agency. Each team's page also contains a table detailing each player's salaries. Below are the Whitehorse Blackouts' current contracted players coming into the 2021 free agency period. Whitehorse Blackouts Team Contracts Name 22 23 24 25 26 Player 1 10.0 11.0 11.0 Player 2 16.0 15.0 Player 3 8.0 Player 4 7.5 7.5 Player 5 3.0 Player 6 2.0 Player 7 5.0 4.0 Player 8 3.5 4.5 Player 9 1.0 Player 10 4.0 Player 11 4.0 Player 12 1.0 1.0 Player 13 1.0 The table shows all players that are currently on contract with the Blackouts, as well as their salary for each year of their contract. In most cases, a team can only have 15 players on their roster for a year. As a note, the Blackouts' 2021 contracts only add up to $66.0m, but their current Contracts Paid value is $71.5m. The remaining $5.5m is allocated to the Blackouts' 2021 draft picks, which we will cover below.

Exceeding Salary Cap

A team can increase or decrease their salary cap from $90m via trades, which we'll cover below.

It's also possible for a team to exceed their salary cap. If a team winds up in a position where their total contracts paid exceeds their total cap, the team's trades are locked down until the situation is resolved. They can make trades to either reduce their contracts paid or increase their cap space, but they are not allowed to make any trades that don't contribute to solving the problem.

A team that starts the season having exceeded their cap space, or that winds up in a position during the regular season where they've exceeded their cap space and don't resolve the situation in a timely manner, is excluded from participating in the playoffs.

Contract Offers

The bulk of free agency involves team contacts making contract offers to players with no current contract (free agents). When a free agent accepts a contract offer from a team, they move onto the team's roster, and their salary comes out of the team's available budget.

There are two types of free agents:

• Unrestricted free agents (or FAs) are players that have had a contract during the past season. Contracts for FAs can last from 1 to 5 years. The maximum salary for an FA in a single year is $30.0m.
• Restricted free agents (or RFAs) are players that have not had a contract during the past season. Contracts for RFAs are all for 1 year at $1.0m.

For example, the Whitehorse Blackouts want to sign Player 14 to their team. Player 14 played for a team during the 2020-21 season, and as such is an unrestricted free agent. The Blackouts' team contact goes to Player 14's page on the wiki, and clicks on the 'Submit Contract' button at the top of the page. This takes them to the contract offer page. The Blackouts want Player 14 for three years, and are willing to pay them $4.0m per year. The team contact fills in '4' for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023.

In the Comments section, the team contact can put any additional information that they'd like. This can include an in-character appeal from the team's general manager or head coach to the player. It can also include in-character additional perks for the player, like promises of access to certain facilities, personalized trainers, etc. The Blackouts don't feel that this is necessary for Player 14, so they submit the form. Player 14's actor reviews the offer from the Blackouts. They like it, so they send an email to the commissioners stating that they accept the offer. In this scenario, only the character's actor has to send their approval.

Upon the actor's approval, Player 14 moves onto the Whitehorse Blackout's roster, and their salary is taken out of the team's available salary cap.

Whitehorse Blackouts Team Contracts

Name	22	23	24	25	26
Player 1	10.0	11.0	11.0
Player 2	16.0	15.0
Player 3	8.0
Player 4	7.5	7.5
Player 5	3.0
Player 6	2.0
Player 7	5.0	4.0
Player 8	3.5	4.5
Player 9	1.0
Player 10	4.0
Player 11	4.0
Player 12	1.0	1.0
Player 13	1.0
Player 14	4.0	4.0	4.0

2021 Budget for	Total Cap	Contracts Paid	Buyouts	Available
Whitehorse Blackouts	90.0	75.5	0.0	14.5

Current contract offers for the preseason are tracked on the Contract Offers page of the Wiki, under the Regular Season section of the sidebar. All Open Offers are in the table on the left, including the contract's duration and total value. Once a contract is accepted, all offers for the player in question are removed from the Open Offers, and the accepted contract moves to the table on the right under Accepted Offers.

If a team needs to update an offer, they should create a new contract offer rather than updating the old offer. If they need to withdraw their offer for any reason, they should go to their most recent contract offer for the character in question, and clear out the page. Remember, people will assume that your most recently submitted contract offer for a player is the correct one.