Unrest & Grudges

Some things move morale and chemistry away from the box score:

• Rumours: when a player keeps coming up in trade talk, word can leak. They find out, and their morale takes a hit that fades over two league weeks.
• Shopping: an agent shopping a player, or a public trade request, costs morale and the room some chemistry. Both fade.
• Trouble off the court: a missed flight, a broken curfew or a fine for comments about officials hurts the player and the room. How you respond changes how they feel about you and how fast it fades (see Conduct & Discipline).
• Trust in the front office: sit-down interviews and DMs with your players build or wear down their trust in you, which nudges morale either way. Crossing a line in a DM costs the whole room.
• The draft: skipping a prospect's pre-draft meeting and then drafting them means they arrive feeling passed over.
• Awards: a fresh award lifts a player's morale for a couple of weeks.

A leaky locker room (low chemistry or several disgruntled players) makes all of this worse: rumours leak more often and trouble off the court is more likely. A tight room stays quiet.

A player can ask out when all of this is true: their morale has stayed low for two league weeks in a row; there's a reason you could fix (minutes well short of what they expect, losing late in their career, a lowball in contract talks, or a strong grudge against your club); and they matter to you (a real salary, or 23 or younger). Players who are hurt, new to the club, already being shopped, or past the trade deadline don't start one. The clock only runs in the regular season. The player's unrest slip on their sheet shows how long they've been simmering.

It comes in three steps:

1. Private. They DM you. Promise them minutes (they hold you to it for 10 games), tell them the truth (buys about another week), ask them to wait 10 games (they remember being asked), or let their agent shop them. Nothing leaves the thread.
2. Their agent, about a week later if nothing changed: the agent DMs you with the clubs that have called. Word leaks to the media, the room takes a small hit, and a broken promise becomes public. You can let the agent shop them, put them back in the rotation, or hold firm.
3. Public, about a week after that: they go on the trade block, it's on the Wire and in League chat, the room takes a bigger hit and their morale slides each week. Now and then an AI club calls their agent with a real offer. Ignore a public request for two weeks and they remember that too.

A kept promise means three straight games at or near the promised minutes; ten games without that and it's broken, and the agent stage comes the next day. Otherwise a stage only moves after you've had your turn.

A demand ends with a trade, their minutes back (three straight games near what they expect), a kept promise, winning (if losing was the reason), a new contract (if the contract was the reason), or a stretch of good morale. The commissioner can also calm one down. When it ends the room's hits fade over about two weeks, they come off the block and you get a "dropped it" message.

When the regular season ends, a demand that's still private or with the agent winds down quietly. There's no DM; the player keeps a memory that they want out this summer, and it shows in the ledger. A public demand doesn't close. It pauses, and the clock only starts again next regular season.

Nothing moves while a promise or a wait is being tracked, while their agent is shopping them, or after the deadline. They always play, and nobody is ever traded for you. Each club has at most one demand going, a club gets a quiet spell after one ends, and the league has a pace: the commissioner's Player Unrest setting (Normal, Rare or Off).

When the commissioner turns Player Unrest Off, no new demands start and every open one winds down on the next league day, at any stage (private, with the agent, or public), the same quiet way as at the end of the regular season: no DM and no Wire story, the player keeps a memory that they want out this summer, the room's hits fade, they come off the trade block and their morale stops sliding. Turning it back on doesn't bring those demands back; a player would have to start a new one, after the usual quiet spell.

AI players ask out too, through the same three steps without the DMs. Once an AI player's demand is public, the club tries to move them after a while as a motivated seller: it prices the player a little below its own read (or the league's public read, if that's lower) and still only takes a deal that passes its own evaluation. Nothing acceptable means they stay. The club's best-paid players get no discount: never a star for filler.

Players remember what a club did to them: a cut, being traded away, a role cut (their minutes taken away after they'd earned them, or being sat on the Inactive list while healthy), a lowball offer, a broken promise, seeing their name in trade rumours, a skipped pre-draft meeting, being asked to wait, a public request you ignored, wanting out at season's end. Good things count too: a kept promise, or a trade they asked for. Memories fade over time (a cut and a broken promise never fully), and they halve when the club's GM changes.

A grudge raises their asking price from that club, and a strong one means they won't take less than that from you at all, in free agency or in re-signing talks. If you bid under it, their agent sends a Refused card with the extra spelled out and a Raise button that opens the offer sheet filled in. While they're on your roster a grudge weighs a little on their trust in you, they bring it up in DMs, and facing your club they may play with a little extra edge.

A former player with a strong grudge may message you in the week before they first face your club. Clear the air halves the memory; Leave it doesn't. The media only knows what was public (a cut, a trade, a public request, a broken promise once the agent was involved).