Edited for new state of tests and to use the 2018 off-season to show it is an immediate issue.
As an example i manually picked up the option for McCaw on the Warriors, yet have no way of signing him to a contract other than min sal. Same for guys like Norman Powell, Vonleh, Exum, TJ Warren, McDermott etc, etc. So it's not like it is not working for, say, 2nd rounders only or traded players only. Does not matter if they are "pre-activated" on the QO-screen or if you manually add them. Some players just don't get assigned Bird Rights no matter what. Heck, i even tried renouncing/releasing player to get the Roster lower (thinking maybe this is the issue), nothing.
Take a team like the Jazz: Both Hood and Exum are pre-selected to receive the QO, both are First Rounders by the Jazz yet Hood has Bird Rights and Exum doesn't.
Or the Suns: Works with Len, does not work with Warren. (Actually Len should not even be eligible since the games first season is his 5th, but whatever)
You can see that something clearly is not working correctly. You can also guess this by taking a look at the new "Cap Holds" section, which is being magically cleared out between the qualifying offers stages and the Moratorium because 90% of the players get their rights renounced, even when the teams are under Manual User Controll, which should never, ever happen !
Update 2:
In year 2, basically no qualifying offers get actually extended (despuite plenty being pre-selected and me manually selecting the rest on 30 team controll) with just 2 exceptions in my current test: Malcolm Brogdon and Devin Booker.
You guys know what the rejected all have in common ? Being marked as "expendable" rather than "core" on the player profile page in the contract section, which is a designation given by the AI and can't be influenced by the user. Brogdon and Booker were the only players eligible for the QO signified as "Core" and both were correctly processed ! I went back to the first season and found the same things.
Lets not talk about the fact that this is a bogus assignment for a 78 rated starter who is 24 years old (i assume the logic is a holdover from past versions with higher ratings) and that this in and of itself might have implications to CPU Trades and the likes ...
I also am 99% sure there is the same issue applying to veterans (the disaperaing cap holds and at least a partial loss of Bird Rights, going from Full Bird to Early Bird/Non-Boid Exceptions) ---> news feed saying their rights were waved depite being on user control and no such action being taken (happens on the 29 other teams and my own controlled team).
The few players whose cap hold is carrying past this stage are almost all marked as Superstar, Veteran or Core (looking it up via save and reload the same save before and after the stage). Everybody marked as expandable gets his rights renounced without any promp by the User.
The reason why this seemed to be less of an issue with veterans is the fact that you can still able to offer them the non-bird or early-bird despite the renouncing of the rights (the rookies only the non-bird even, which is impossible to sign most players coming off rookie contracts with if your over the cap) ---> This in and of itself is not correct either btw.
The news feed is also awash with news of teams renouncing the rights to these players, so it is not merely a display error in the Cap Hold section. The fact that this renouncing is never prompted to the User in any way bothered me from the start, actually. Now it apears that he is not only not prompted to do so but that it happens off-screen without his doing.
This is not a small-time nuisance at this magnitude. I mean, it essentially takes half your options of the table. Basically all you can do is extend a player (rather than take your chances in the open market and see what other teams offer) and the same holds true for the cpu.
This might also explain the utter lack of medium-sized contracts, which is exactly what these sort of players would command. The automatic renouncing of rights of almost every player (even good starters !) also clears up unrealistic capspace for teams to make a big signing and then turn around and still sign a few of their veterans (for which the wrongly assigned non-bird/early-bird rights are more than enough)
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