In the House of Delegates (HOD) meeting in Orlando last April 2008, the delegates moved, and had this motion passed.  The motion is as follows:

Restricted Free Agency. The Basketball Players Advisory Council- proposes to permit the use of one restricted free agent per team as 2-year trial. RFA would mean that any player could play for a team outside of his residential or employment location. Only one player will be allowed from outside of a respective region to sign with a team. The player must remain with the team of his choice for at least two years. If the player decides he does not want to play with that team after the first year will be allowed to return to his permanent residential location and sign with a team there. After two seasons the player can use his restricted free agent allowance again under the same conditions, two-year minimum stay with his new team.

With this program being a two-year trial, our National Tournaments, as well as all its regional tournaments shall allow for Restricted Free Agency (RFA) to occur during the basketball seasons of 2008-09 and 2009-10. 

If this program is deemed successful, the delegates will need to make a new motion at the HOD in 2010 to make this program a permanent one.  If there is no motion made, or if the motion was brought to the floor but failed, this program shall end.

As always in the past, and as defined in the bylaws, all players must represent their “home regions” based on their residency, place of employment, or place of education.  They must be in these area(s) for at least 30 days before they are eligible for their home region. 

Now, with the RFA program, any player may sign up for teams that belong to regions that are outside of their home region.  The RFA has the following rules:

1. The player must remain with the team for two years.  If the player decides to leave the team, the player must return to a team within his/her home region.  If the player leaves the team that s/he was a RFA for, the player cannot sign up for another team as a RFA again until the end of the two-year term.
   
   
2. If the team that the player signed up as a RFA dissolves, the player must return to a team within his/her home region.  The player cannot sign with any other teams as RFA until the original two-year term ends.
   
   
3. If the player signs with a team as a RFA, and decides to leave the team, and if the player changes his/her residency, place of employment, or education location, the player may sign up with any teams within his/her new region

Your region officials will evaluate the team registration forms, and validate any players that signed up for a team in your region as a RFA.

USADB will post on our website a final list of players that are on RFA so our membership can view and know which players are playing for which team, and for which term.

Please contact your region officials, and/or USADB officials should you have any questions or concerns.

View as PDF