An ode to restricted free agency
Not the wage-suppression part... but like, maybe everything else?
Let’s start this piece with the necessary disclaimer upfront: in no way do I support paying players less than their worth, okay? In a just basketball world, all players would be paid their appropriate value.
But we don’t live in a just basketball world. And if we’re being intellectually honest, the inequitable asymmetry created by salary caps, luxury taxes, and other collectively bargained machinations does make for a much more interesting system to analyze, to marvel at.
Today, I wanted to look at an underappreciated aspect of teambuilding: restricted free agency. While the broad use cases are well-known (it lets a franchise keep its young guys, hopefully at a discount), I believe teams are just beginning to scratch the surface on creatively weaponizing RFAs against other teams.