Five tiers. Two stars. One cap.
Every active pro, lined up by career UC earned. Where you stand in line sets your tier, and your tier sets your price. Now rebuilt on the Season 4 contract sheet.
What the contract sheet changed
The Season 4 contract sheet shows who is really on each roster and what they're really paid. Six things changed because of it.
Prices are in dollars
The league already runs on dollars with a $165M cap, so the tiers do too. Each tier is now a share of the cap, .
Bonuses now count
41% of Season 4 player pay is bonus money the cap never sees. , and performance bonuses are capped at half the salary.
Incentive Cash refills
Bonuses come out of each team's Incentive Cash, and . A yearly allowance, bigger for lottery teams, replaces the one-time pool.
One pay system, not two
The league already pays performance bonuses, so the separate league-paid Performance Pay idea is dropped. The existing bonuses now use the Stats Credit tables instead.
Real rosters, real stars
On the real rosters only Dallas breaks the Two-Star Rule, and two of its three stars are on expiring deals. .
A floor on draft picks
Pittsburgh, Vancouver and Minnesota hold 15 of the first-round picks in the next two drafts, while Dallas, New York and Oakland hold none. Every team must now own a first in .
The whole system in one breath
Everyone is ranked by . Your rank puts you in one of five tiers, each tier is a slice of the salary cap, and your contract has to land inside it.
Every team has a $165M cap, and no team can carry more than two stars. Everything else on this page is detail, and every piece of it is clickable.
Explain it like I'm five
Think of a video game high-score list. The top names get the shiniest trophies and cost the most to sign. Every team gets the same size lunch tray (the cap), and only two giant plates (stars) fit on it. Sneaking food in your pocket (bonuses) doesn't work anymore: the pocket counts as part of the tray.
The tier ladder
Each tier is a share of the salary cap, so . A season's salary plus that season's signing bonus has to land inside the range, in steps of $0.5M.
The ranges , and each tier holds . Legends sign at .
Award override: the reigning MVP, DPOY and All-League 1st Team can sign up to the Legend price whatever their tier.
What today's market says
Where would I land?
Or pick a player:
How your rank is set
Rank Score = career UC earned + Accolade UC. Accolade UC uses the existing awards table (MVP 10,000, All-League 1st 7,000 and so on), capped at 20,000 a season.
The league takes , after the Finals and after awards post. That board sets every price until the next one. Ties go to the higher Stats Credit, then a wheel spin.
Because it's a ranking, . A signed contract never changes, so a drop only matters for the next deal.
Explain it like I'm five
Teddy Romero is rank 28 with 267,999 UC earned. Blanco Sky is rank 29 with 266,648. That 1,351 gap is the whole difference between Gold and Silver. One All-Defensive Team selection (2,500 Accolade UC) and they swap places.
The Rank Board
Ranks from the UC tracker, teams and salaries from the contract sheet. Search, filter, sort any column, and click a row for the full card.
| Tier |
|---|
The team cap
Salary cap. Salaries plus signing bonuses for new signings and trades must fit under it.
Tax line. Room above the cap, only for .
Cap floor. .
Two-Star Rule
No team may carry more than two stars. A star is anyone ranked in the top 12 at the latest snapshot, plus anyone on a new deal at the Hall of Fame floor ($30M) or above.
Bonus rules
Signing bonuses count on the cap in the season they're paid, and salary plus signing bonus must fit the tier range. Performance bonuses stay off the cap but can't exceed 50% of that season's salary, and they pay out on the Stats Credit tables. Bonuses in contracts already signed are grandfathered.
Incentive Cash
Every team gets $50M a season; lottery teams get $15M more. Allowances stop while a team's balance is above $150M, so nobody hoards a war chest.
Hometown and picks
Hometown Discount: after 3 straight seasons, a re-sign counts 10% lighter on the cap. Pick floor: every team must own at least one first-round pick in any three-draft window.
Explain it like I'm five
Two Legends eat $92M of a $165M tray, more than half of it. You can still add a good side dish (a Gold or a Silver) and fill out the bench, but not a third main course. And the bonus you hand a player on signing day counts as part of his plate.
Cap Lab
Load any team's real contracts, flip between Season 4 and Season 5, decide who to re-sign, add free agents, and watch the rules light up. Nothing here is saved.
Commissioner's dials
Change the league settings; tier prices follow the cap, and the Cap Lab and league table update instantly.
The league today, on the real contracts
Season 5 counts salary only for contracts that run past Season 4; bonuses already signed are grandfathered. Click a team to open it in the Cap Lab.
| Team | Tiers on roster | Stars | Payroll | Floor, cap, tax line | Expiring top-60 | Status |
|---|
Why rank instead of UC Spent bands?
The draft Season 5 handbook priced players by fixed UC Spent bands, with Franchise at 425,000 and up, and called 450,000 a fully maxed build. Step through the seasons and watch those bands fill.
After Season 1 nobody had spent 275,000. After Season 3, 25 players had, and 7 have now spent more than the 450,000 "max." Fixed bands fill from the bottom up every season. The ranked tiers stay at 4, 8, 16 and 32 forever.
The rest of the rulebook
Rookie scale
Unchanged: picks 1 to 6 earn $15M, 7 to 16 $12M, 17 to 24 $10M, 25 to 40 $8M. New: .
Contracts
Up to 3 seasons after the rookie deal, plus options. Existing 5-year deals are honored. . Renegotiation is offseason only, and only upward. An exercised option pays at least the player's current tier floor.
Free agency
Blind bids. If two bids match, the . Bids are compared on salary plus signing bonus.
Retirements and releases
A retired player's remaining salary comes off the cap at the next snapshot. A released player's salary stays on the cap until another team signs him, and his old team can't re-sign him that season.
Performance bonus calculator
Performance bonus = Stats Credit × 50% of salary, paid from Incentive Cash at season's end, . Players need at least half the season's games.
Five stories from the real sheet
Angel Torres hits the market
Dallas has three stars
Quincy Washington (rank 4), LaShawn Cunningham (9) and Grizzly Hubb (10) all play in Dallas. LaShawn and Grizzly are on expiring $15M deals. Dallas can re-sign one of them; the other goes to market, and the fewer-stars tiebreaker points him at a team without a star.
The rookie bonus problem
Dee Fernandez signed for $36M over three seasons, with $75M in bonuses on top. Under the new caps the same deal would carry at most $9M in signing bonuses and $18M in performance bonuses. Existing deals stay as they are.
Oakland goes shopping
New York's bill comes due
Switching over for Season 5
- Fix the sheet, clean the list, then snapshot. Correct the issues listed under Sheet checks on the Contracts page, remove retired and inactive players, then rank everyone after the Season 4 Finals.
- Honor every existing contract, . Existing salaries are already in dollars, so nothing converts.
- Start the Incentive Cash allowance. Every team gets its $50M, lottery teams $65M, and nobody above $150M collects.
- Run free agency with the new prices, signing bonuses on the cap, frozen star counts and the fewer-stars tiebreaker.
How GMs will try to beat it
Any cap gets tested. These are the plays a sharp GM is most likely to try, ranked by how much damage they could do. Tap one to see the fix.
Pros and cons
What it gets right
- Stars stay scarce forever.There are always 4 Legends and 8 Hall of Famers, no matter how much UC the league hands out.
- The cap finally covers the money.Signing bonuses count, so the team with the deepest Incentive Cash can't buy around the cap.
- It costs what the league pays now.The new bands total $2.29B against today's $2.30B, so nobody's books explode.
- Bad teams get real tools.Extra Incentive Cash, the fewer-stars tiebreaker and the cap floor all push talent their way.
- Prices follow the cap.Raise the cap and every tier rises with it; no more quietly cheaper stars.
- Anyone can audit it.Count stars, add up salary plus signing bonus, compare to $165M.
What it costs
- Bonus-heavy teams lose an edge.Teams that built through big signing bonuses will feel the cap sooner on new deals.
- You can drop a tier without getting worse.Rank is relative, so newer players passing you lowers your next price.
- Cutoffs are cliffs.1,351 UC decides Gold or Silver today.
- Long deals delay the effect.Six of the twelve stars are signed through Season 8, so most of the change shows up in new deals and the Season 2 class.
- More admin work.A yearly snapshot, Stats Credit, Incentive Cash allowances and floor accounting each need an owner.
- Legends get a raise.Today's Legends average $37M; the flat $46M price is higher, paid for by cheaper Silver and Bronze deals.
Decisions and data checks
Tick these off as you go. Ticks aren't saved.