The market sets the price. The cap sheet sets the move.
Value meets the cap, and the cap usually wins, read across the deal's full term.
The market has one number for him. You have your own.
The market price is what anyone would pay. Value to your team depends on your scheme and your needs, and the two rarely match. The board is ranked by value per dollar for your roster, not by the size of the name. This is a composite board for a team that needs a creator.
The $34M star is the biggest name and the worst deal for you, because he duplicates what you have and costs above his value. The $14M creator is the best signing on the board, because he fills the need and is worth more to you than the market asks. The board is ranked by value per dollar, and the biggest name sits third.
Illustrative read on the real market-value vs team-value (value per dollar) board. Composite free agents, demonstration figures.
A signing here, an exception there, out of reach across the room.
Value tells you who you want. The cap tells you who you can have. The same free agent read through three cap situations becomes a different thing in each, depending entirely on where the team sits.
Nothing about the player changed across the three panels. His value is identical everywhere. What changed is the cap sheet reading him, and that, not the value, decides whether he is a signing, a stretch, or a fantasy. Value meets the cap, and the cap usually wins.
Illustrative read on the real cap-position structure (room, exceptions, apron limits). Generic team situations, demonstration figures.
You are not paying this year's price. You are paying four.
A contract is a commitment across years, on a cap that moves and a player who ages. The whole trajectory, what he is paid against what he is worth, is drawn year by year, so the deal that looks fine today is checked against the year it goes underwater. Same composite creator, a four-year offer.
The first two years are a bargain, the third breaks even, and by the fourth he is paid well above his declining value, the year the deal goes underwater. That does not kill the signing, but it names the cost before you sign it: a great deal now that you carry as dead weight later, unless the term is shorter. The market prices one year. The read prices all four.
Illustrative read on the real multi-year cap trajectory (pay vs value across the term, cap rising, player aging). Composite player, demonstration figures.
The best free agent is the best value you can actually afford, this year and the three after it.
Want the value. Afford the move.
Rank the market by value per dollar, read it through your cap sheet, price the whole term.