Should the Knicks match the Jeremy Lin offer sheet?

[niko]

Lets look at the situation....
1) Financial - If the Knicks match, the penalties in year 3 are enormous. People have thrown around a $1 per tax, but it actually could be more depending how much the Knicks are in the tax, due to repeater penalties, increasing penalties as you get further into the tax, etc. It's also a lot of money for him. Honestly, people are spinning it but he will be WAY overpaid.

HOWEVER, the Knicks do not really lose flexibility due to already being over the cap, and he is trade chip, albeit a devalued one due to the balloon payment. It can be argued that losing him weakens the Knicks ability to make trades as they will have less players.

2) Ability - There is a lot of opinion here clearly but i will try to be fair.
IS LIN A BETTER PLAYER THAT RAYMOND FELTON? This is debatable, but i do think it's fair to see Lin's ceiling is higher. I don't think Felton will get much better, but Lin potentially could. Lin's knee to me is a concern, not because that injury may re-occur, but just simply because he broke down. All year we heard how he could take the contact, but it wasn't long before he got hurt. Felton's concern is conditioning. He came into Portland as a big fat ass. Clearly he did not want to be there. But that cannot repeat in NY.

WHO FITS BETTER INTO THE KNICKS CURRENTLY? Probably Raymond Felton. Lin excels at pick n roll, and that is not the Knicks current game. However, things can change, situations can change, making a long term move based on that fact might be a gamble. Lin should be able to adjust, especially with a full training camp.

DOES LIN WANT TO BE IN NY?
The third offer sheet bothered me. Not only did Lin and his agent get a new offer sheet, but they worked with the Rockets to make sure it was as bad as possible for the Knicks, and while he was doing this Lin ducked the Knicks so he didn't have to speak to them. (They were both in Vegas). And neither Lin nor his agent told the Knicks terms changed, the media leaked that to the Knicks. It makes me feel like he might want to leave.

Clearly your own opinions on this will affect your decisions. Yes i posted a lot of crap. Me, I think the Knicks should match, we lack guards (SG) and can play multiple people, it gives us flexibility down the road, and i don't like losing 23 yr old assets for nothing. But i understand if they don't.

You?

[willds09]

yes sir

[Foster5k]

Simple. No.

Jeremy Lin had a few good games and now he is Chris Paul, etc. The dude isn't that good. Mario Chalmers locked him down.

[fatboy11]

Yes, please.

[I LUV KOBE]

Yes, so they can continue their tradition to sucks for the entire decade..

[willds09]

Yes, so they can continue their tradition to sucks for the entire decade..

[Rekindled]

match and trade him before his third year

[bluechox2]

lets match and then not play him till dec and trade him to rockets for assets

that way, lin will truly know if rockets really wanted him

[Dwyane Rose]

Obviously. The Knicks would not have made the playoffs without Lin. Would've probably been a lottery team, gotten a shitty pick and then traded it for some scrub.

Lin saved the season last year.

[Dagouch]

Dude I'm torn.

In one aspect I think he has a higher ceiling than Felton. He's shown flashes of being very good. I don't think he'll be back in Linsanity mode but I think he can be decent point guard.

The other is supposed reports of his head getting too big. His Knee being at least 85% percent and not willing to play against the Heat. Him going behind the Knicks' back after saying they would match and Helping the Rockets go higher in year three.

I'm not sure if any or all of that is true but man it's not making me feel good about him.

I know he's trying to most money he can but Just staying in New York itself has a ton of perks in regards to endorsements and Television.

I just really don't know at this point.

[Snoop_Cat]

I think we should. The fact that Lin went back to renegotiate his contract with the Rockets using the Knicks as leverage does bother me a lot.

But, to address your points:

A) Finance really isn't too big an issue. If Lin plays well, it'll bring in huge additional profits for the franchise. There's a reason why MSG soared when Linsanity was happening. Even if he doesn't end up panning out, 5mil a year isn't that bad and the tax hit will only be for one year. We have zero financial flexibility whether or not we keep Lin anyways so whatever, it'll also be a very valuable expiring contract which can maybe be packaged to get rid of Amare or something.

B) Kidd's signed on for 3 more years but realistically he's done. J.R's our only SG right now with Shumpert now and I can see Lin playing a lot of SG if we match. And quite honestly, he's probably a better fit at the SG right now anyways. He can't go left, he's got subpar handling skills, and he's a scoring PG.

But, considering we have old ass Kidd, and I have no idea how well Felton will turn out, we need something to hedge that risk. If worst comes to worst, Lin will be rotting on the bench again but I suspect that he would still bring in lots of money if he gets a few minutes of time so as far as the investment goes, no reason not to do it.

[LJJ]

No. Lin simply isn't worth that money, especially not with the luxury tax kicking in.


I know all Knicks fans like to boast about how money isn't an issue, but honestly my head starts to spin when I hear shit like that. How can you say that, the Knicks were in their worst shape in franchise history because of bad contracts until very recently.

Bad contracts are horrible for your franchise when you are over the cap, regardless of whether the owner can miss that money or not.

[niko]

Note: I hear this a lot and it drives me nuts, the Knicks could not offer Lin more than $24M for 4 years, starting at 5 a year with modest increases. Lin wanted more than that, so the Knicks told him to go get an offer sheet (maybe they should have said GO GET ONE OFFER SHEET but whatever...).

I keep hearing "The Knicks should have made a better offer", they really could not make an offer in the ballpark he wanted.

[longtime lurker]

Simply put. If they want a 15 million expirer in 3 years then match the contract otherwise there's no way Lin is worth that luxury tax money.

[AK47DR91]

match and trade him before his third year

This.

And please don't say that no team would want to trade for him when he's 25-26 years old. He played a month of basketball and missed the playoff, yet he's still the talk of the offseason. As long as he can out up decent numbers for the next two years, he'll be a tradeable asset in the 3rd year.