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BullsGM
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« on: December 18, 2018, 09:31:18 AM » |
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With free agency approaching I thought I'd do a good deed and explain what I've learned about the MLE, what it is, how to get one, and how to use it.
MLE stand for mid-level exception and it's a extremely useful tool for team that are either above the soft cap, or just about over the cap. It allows those teams to offer up to $6 million on free agents. That $6 million can either be used all on one person, or split up in any variety of ways totaling to the $6 million number. MLE's are also interesting because they allow you to offer up to 10% increases in salaries to the guy(s) you are trying to sign. Which is an increase over the 5% allowed for non-bird players and 7.5% for the bird right guys that were on your team the previous year. To use your MLE, in the negotiation tab of a FA, on the right hand side is a drop down menu next to "Contract type." Change that to MLE and you will see the "Max" offer in the center change to reflect the $6 million you can offer said free agent.
Those aspects of the MLE are pretty well known already. The confusing part of them is how you actually get to qualify to use one. You qualify for a MLE if you are currently over the soft cap of $80 million, OR if using the MLE would put you over $80 million in salary. Basically, if you have $74,000,001 in total salary, you qualify for the use of your MLE. Here's the tricky part though. You have to stay above that $74,000,001 number for the duration of the offseason. That means going into the draft with that number (i.e. having that much salary on your books after the Finals sim) and staying above that number throughout the various trades and/or cuts that you make. If you had say $84 million in salary but trade a guy making $12 million, bringing back $0 in salary, you would lose the ability to use that MLE. Last year, the reason I waited to process I think this is the part that is bewildering to some teams. Also, do not be confused by the "unused exception" part of your HTML or program salaries. The program will give everyone an MLE up until FA and then either take it away or keep it based on you meeting the above criteria.
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