The NBAfication of MLS continues

Why non-expiring GAM may not be the best competitively, but is a game-changer in roster building

I love the NBA (even if it hurt me badly with the Luka Doncic trade). I grew up playing basketball, which meant playing the sport and indulging in NBA 2K, the number one video game. In 2K, that’s where I fell in love with the mechanics of working in sports. 2K’s GM Mode (or whatever the hell it was called in 2011) had so many details that I had to keep up with, from Bird Rights to following cap mechanisms, to G-League call-ups and more. I studied all of it, which began my foray into sports (and eventually sports analytics).

I’ve been yearning for MLS to take a page out of the NBA’s book on the roster-building side for years. The NBA has had the on-the-play product struggle but off-the-court, we’ve seen storylines dominate and provide another element of discussion for the league. From the Doncic trade to the second apron, NBA fans can confidently talk about transactions in a way that doesn’t mirror GM’s but aligns. For example, an X account named CBAMavs has the up-to-date Dallas Mavericks salary cap numbers to such a detailed level.

In MLS, we don’t have that. We can only do our best with estimations of salaries and total budget charges. To the league’s credit, unless teams are publically traded in Europe, transfer fees aren’t often public. For it to be a part of the budget charge makes sense from a parity standpoint, but at the same time makes it harder for storyline building.

MLS has done some things to promote transparency. First came the roster profiles and then the GAM releases this offseason. These have been great advancements and have led to the topic of this newsletter; non-expiring GAM. The league announced that non-discretionary GAM does not expire anymore as of this season. Previously, if you had 2025 GAM, you had to use it in 2025. Now, you can save that GAM and put it into the future, whether that’s 2026 or 2027.

In the lead, I wrote about how this move may not be the best for competitive purposes. Think about it. If I had to spend whatever money I had, I’d spend it on whatever to try and build a good roster. It was essentially use or lose it and you gained nothing from saving it. It was why early on in the off-season (before this change was announced), I pondered what FC Dallas was going to do with their excess GAM.

That all changed with the rule change. A team can now save its allocation money and rebuild in a way that makes more sense for the club’s timeline. For example, imagine you’re a team and have just had a difficult season. Your team is aging and the cycle for that group of players is over. You can now acquire GAM for those players you don’t want on your roster and absorb respective budget charge hits in Year 1 of the build before rolling over that allocation money in pursuit of a more competitive roster in Year 2.

There’s multi-year roster building now. We obviously won’t see teams tank for a draft prospect but maybe we will see younger squads spend the first year gelling before their GAM gets used to bring in more veteran pieces. That expands the roster-building conversation and allows teams to have the flexibility to build the team in the way that they want. Whether it’s wanting to compete immediately or build in a much slower manner, we’re getting more and more roster autonomy.

And MLS needs plenty of that.

I’m interested to see the effects of this later on in the season. Will there be sell-offs like in the NBA during the trade deadline, where teams who don’t think that they will compete for MLS Cup or a playoff spot trade off players for GAM in 2026? Will a team that’s sitting on a lot of GAM make a splash late to make a playoff run?

A scenario I can see playing out goes a bit like this. Let’s say, for FAM’s sake, that Minnesota United has a strong season and is sitting in the fourth spot in the West. For this hypothetical, Minnesota believes it needs one CB to compete for MLS Cup and solidify its defense. Portland is out of the playoff picture and CB Dario Zuparic’s contract expires at the end of the season (Again, this is just purely an example and not based on any metrics). If Minnesota believes that Zuparic is the guy and Portland wants to get an early start in its rebuild, I can see a world where Minnesota can offer some assets to get Zuparic and push for the cup.

These are examples that happen in the NBA all the time. I’m curious to see if teams take note of that or attempt to do transactions in that way, or if they just continue as if that rule hadn’t changed. Overall, it’s a welcomed rule change and I’m excited to see how teams utilize that in decision making.

Week 1 Watch Guide Review:

⚽Big Coffee, Pollo, and The Defending Champs: My MLS Week 1 Watch Guide

• Austin FC 1, Sporting Kansas City 0: We saw Austin FC play a hesitant style of play with an xG of .91 in their 1-0 victory over Sporting Kansas City. Nico Estevez’s men built slowly and attempted to build from the back, progressing to the wings and hoping to get a ball in the box for Brandon Vazquez.

  • I really liked what I saw from the middle of Austin FC. Dani Pereira, Ilie Sanchez, and my favorite Owen Wolff I thought had moments of playing well. They will need to improve their progression but this was encouraging for ATX.

• Atlanta United 3, Montreal 2: Atlanta-Montreal was fantastic and my favorite game of the week. Atlanta played directly and with firepower through Miguel Almiron and Emmanuel Latte Lath and scored three goals! Their soccer was so much fun and I mean if it wasn’t known already, ATL is must watch TV.

  • Montreal also quietly impressed me. It’s game one and again, we need to be very careful about making judgments, but I want to continue tracking Laurent Courtois’ men. They played a bit more direct than they did last season and I wonder if it’s an evolution of their game model or just situational vs ATL.

• San Diego FC 2, LA Galaxy 0: Don’t overreact to one game but I’ve been beating the drum of worry for the Galaxy. Again, they’re the closest thing to a heliocentric offense through Puig and they looked lost in their 2-0 loss to San Diego FC. Reus was invisible, Pec wasn’t great until very late. Just not sold on the Galaxy early on and it’ll be a process for sure.

  • For SDFC, what a result! I was impressed by their moments in possession and their ability to see out a result. This is a brand new team and Mikey Varas had them so connected. We’ll see how they fare in their home opener vs STL.

Other Readings

• Joe Lowery killed it again with his MLS Winners and Losers.

• I know I boosted Sebastian Bush last week, but his BlueSky with the MLS graphs is excellent viewing

• I really enjoyed Tim Hotze’s review of the Columbus-Chicago match. Look, I know it wasn’t the result the Fire wanted but I was encouraged by their performance and Hotze does a great job diving deeper into it.

Until next time!