Felton to Knicks close, Lin to Houston?

[Real Deal]

Maybe he'll get it beyond half court against Miami

At one point, Portland wasn't even sure if Felton could run up and down the court for more than 15 minutes without looking like a 45-year old veteran back-up.

 

Hopefully, for the Knicks' sake, he comes into camp with a new look, much better conditioning, and ready to learn from J-Kidd.

 

The fact that New York isn't willing to give him at least another year after what he brought to that franchise is pathetic.

It's the money, and I don't blame them for not wanting to match, really. I mean, Lin looked spectacular for a while, but he turned the ball over more than any player in NBA history through a stretch of games, and many just feel the Knicks were in dire need of a true point, instead of someone like Toney Douglas in there doing absolutely nothing for them.

 

If the Knicks could have signed Lin on their own terms, not having to match an offer sheet...well, you would more than likely see Jeremy Lin back in New York.

[TheNotoriousBANG]

lol knicks got fat ass felton, he looked so out of shape last year

 

last year they made all the asian people happy

this year they will make all the fat people happy

 

knicks...making ppl happy

[NomarFachix]

At one point, Portland wasn't even sure if Felton could run up and down the court for more than 15 minutes without looking like a 45-year old veteran back-up.

Portland is silly

[NomarFachix]

last year they made all the asian people happy

this year they will make all the fat people happy

 

knicks...making ppl happy

Bill Simmons did this joke but it wasn't so awkward

[fish7718]

Hm...

[TheNotoriousBANG]

i dont know why in the hell they would go for fat felton though

 

i mean i would rather get bayless or some young draft pick maybe to run the show

before lin came, knicks looked sorry, they clearly don't know the importance of a good pg

 

j kidd better find a time machine cause felton is easily the worst starting pg in the east

[fish7718]

i dont know why in the hell they would go for fat felton though

 

i mean i would rather get bayless or some young draft pick maybe to run the show

before lin came, knicks looked sorry, they clearly don't know the importance of a good pg

 

j kidd better find a time machine cause felton is easily the worst starting pg in the east

So tell us again..do you think Felton is fat?

[Check my Stats]

Felton is a solid player when he is playing to the best of his abilities. At least with him, you aren't investing a bitch load of money into a what if, you already know he is a starting caliber point in this league.

 

I like this from a basketball standpoint for the Knicks.

 

[expletive] the Rockets man. I am dreading when Derozan is an RFA next year. If he puts up 18 points on 43% shooting, Houston is gonna offer a match.

Edited July 15, 2012 by Check my Stats

[Lemon]

Houston is desperate for a PG, but if they don't get a great p&r center they're overpaying a lot. Knicks would make the right decision by not matching the offer since Lin isn't that useful w/o running a pick n roll.

[YugoRocketsFan]

Thanks Knicks. You mad?

[NomarFachix]

Thanks Knicks. You mad?

Thrilled. Enjoy $1M per start.

[YugoRocketsFan]

Thrilled. Enjoy $1M per start.

 

$1M > Getting swept by Heat every season.

[Guru]

$1M > Getting swept by Heat every season.

They won one lol

[Sportsguy9695]

Im not a fan of this move. I was a fan of Lin, he brought 2 great weeks for knicks fans

[NomarFachix]

$1M > Getting swept by Heat every season.

We beat the Heat one game with a shitty roster and no Lin, lol.. and Lin wasn't even able to get the ball across half court in the game he played against them

 

$1M per start, no playoff experience.. Winning

[Cleveland's Finest]

Felton is a solid player when he is playing to the best of his abilities. At least with him, you aren't investing a bitch load of money into a what if, you already know he is a starting caliber point in this league.

 

I like this from a basketball standpoint for the Knicks.

 

A what if? Felton is definitely that. You think Portland expected him to show up out of shape? Meanwhile, Lin proved over a huge string of games that he can produce and win for a team under huge pressure.

 

From a basketball, marketing, and organizational standpoint, signing Lin is the correct move. Felton is not someone you can have confidence in, as evidenced by his play last season.

 

Normally I am against overpaying, but Lin's production deserved more respect from the Knicks.

[NomarFachix]

A what if? Felton is definitely that. You think Portland expected him to show up out of shape? Meanwhile, Lin proved over a huge string of games that he can produce and win for a team under huge pressure.

 

From a basketball, marketing, and organizational standpoint, signing Lin is the correct move. Felton is not someone you can have confidence in, as evidenced by his play last season.

 

Normally I am against overpaying, but Lin's production deserved more respect from the Knicks.

A million per start? No. How about respect on Lin's end, then, to the only team that gave him a chance?

[Abro]

^ Man's gotta cash in when he can though.. I mean, if he is a bust, bros gotta earn a living too ya know.

[Cleveland's Finest]

A million per start? No. How about respect on Lin's end, then, to the only team that gave him a chance?

 

In a NBA where a majority of the players are egotistical and self-serving, I see no problem in him looking out for his interests. If he isn't, who will?

[NomarFachix]

^ Man's gotta cash in when he can though.. I mean, if he is a bust, bros gotta earn a living too ya know.

Absolutely, I don't disagree. But then he can't get mad that the Knicks don't match and fans can't say he deserves to be matched.. End of the day he did what was best for him, not what was best for us. Props to him, but I don't think he's worth what he's getting. It's a business on both ends.

[TheNotoriousBANG]

its not the fact that they lost lin

 

its the fact they have a fatass pg trying to keep up with westbrook, rose, deron williams etc

 

while teams r making moves to improve knicks r stacking up old peices like it's time to compete in 1999 or something

they lost 2 young peices in feilds and lin, got older and not necessarily better

 

kidd DUI arrest is a foreshadow of the mess this season will be.

and knicks don't even need to worry about the Heat, they should worry about the play-off as their a 8th seed team

[NomarFachix]

its the fact they have a fatass pg trying to keep up with westbrook, rose, deron williams etc

 

Iman Shumpert has and will keep up with those guys.

 

while teams r making moves to improve knicks r stacking up old peices

 

Kidd, Felton isn't an upgrade over Douglas, Bibby? Camby, Thomas over Jeffries, Harrellson?

 

they should worry about the play-off as their a 8th seed team

First full offseason since Melo came over, full year of JR, vets off the bench (improved Mobb Deep), full year of Woody as coach, relative health.. If this team is an 8 seed or worse, I pay you $50. Better and you pay me. Deal?

[TheNotoriousBANG]

Iman Shumpert has and will keep up with those guys.

 

 

 

Kidd, Felton isn't an upgrade over Douglas, Bibby? Camby, Thomas over Jeffries, Harrellson?

 

 

First full offseason since Melo came over, full year of JR, vets off the bench (improved Mobb Deep), full year of Woody as coach, relative health.. If this team is an 8 seed or worse, I pay you $50. Better and you pay me. Deal?

 

nah they always had the talent to be better than 8 seed id have more to lose with the bet

 

 

even without lin this team should have never been flirting with .500

 

at least 1-2 younger upgrades would have been better, Kurt Thomas is done saw him with the Bulls, he's been past his last 2 he's like juwon howard pointlessly pushing retirement

 

i like shumpert though

[NomarFachix]

Well Thomas will only see spot minutes to use up his 6 hard fouls a game, give Amar'e a breather.. Still tho, compared to Harrellson? No brainer

 

Team was .500 really because of Mike D offense with no PG, injured Melo, 65% Amar'e, no SG most of the year until JR came (Landry was horriawful..), no defense, etc etc etc. I don't expect it again.

[JYD]

Knicks should match Lin. This entire situation is mind blowing to me, really...especially from a lot of fans who don't want Lin back, it amazes me. Now we are concerned with money and luxery tax? Please read this article because it is exactly how I feel.

 

#BringBackLin

 

"Knicks Must Match Jeremy Lin Offer"

'Bockers letting J-Lin walk for nothing? Now that's what really sounds ridiculous

ESPNnewyork - Ian O'Connor

 

In the early hours of his NBA career, one scheduled to be painfully brief, the undrafted and unwanted Jeremy Lin predicted he would be an All-Star within three years. He had spent a little time competing against the pros in practices and summer games, and came away believing he belonged in a big way.

 

"All I need is an opportunity," he told those around him, and the perpetually desperate New York Knicks finally gave him one. On the verge of firing Lin just like the Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets had done before, the Knicks threw him out there and watched one of the most improbable basketball stories ever told unfold on their watch.

 

And now they're prepared to give Lin away for nothing. Forget for a moment the global marketing phenomenon that Lin represented, and what he meant to Madison Square Garden stock in February and what he's likely to be worth in merchandising, sponsorships, and ratings and rights deals to the team that employs him. This is a 23-year-old point guard with a chance, a legitimate one, to become something of a star, and the Knicks are about to let him return to Houston without even getting a second-round pick in return.

 

Any successful business needs to protect its prime assets, and the Knicks aren't protecting one of their own. One of the smartest NBA fans I know emailed me the box score from Knicks-Lakers at the Garden, the one showing Lin with 38 points, 7 assists, 13 field goals in 23 attempts, and 10 free throws in 13 attempts.

 

"You can't fake this box," the fan wrote.

 

Jeremy Lin didn't fake anything in his 15 minutes as a Knick. He tore through the league before he tore up his knee, and in between ran into a Miami Heat team hell-bent on stamping out the raging fires of Linsanity. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade went at Lin the way Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen went at Toni Kukoc in the '92 Olympics, and hard lessons were taught and learned.

 

People who believe Lin to be a fluke, a figment of Mike D'Antoni's imagination, forever default back to that game in Miami before the All-Star break, when an exhausted Lin looked hopelessly lost. But that night was merely a case of a rookie quarterback running up against a fiercely determined defense. Lin is bound to become a better quarterback for that experience, not a weaker one.

 

The injury robbed him of a second crack at the Heat in the playoffs, and maybe another crack at enhancing his stock in free agency. The Knicks could've signed him out of the gate for four years and about $24 million, and instead they gambled that Lin wouldn't find a better offer elsewhere.

 

They lost that gamble. Lin signed a Rockets offer sheet worth $25.1 million over three years, including a $14.8 million wage in the final season designed to luxury tax the Knicks into oblivion if they match. This all happened after Lin beat his old team with the kind of head fake he used on Kobe and the rest in February, verbally agreeing to a $19 million guarantee and a more palatable $9.3 million wage in Year 3 and inspiring Mike Woodson to promise that the Knicks would match and that Lin would start.

 

Those turned out to be Rex Ryan guarantees.

 

Enraged that Lin took those assurances back to the negotiating table in Houston -- ESPNNewYork.com reported last week that Lin was pushing for more cash from Houston -- the Knicks responded by bringing back a cheaper alternative, Raymond Felton, and by telling Lin to get lost. According to a source close to the situation, Jim Dolan, a notorious grudge-holder, feels betrayed that the Harvard kid took him to school after the Knicks gave him his big shot.

 

Never mind that the Knicks were ready to waive Lin before he went off on Deron Williams and the Nets. Never mind that the Knicks got rid of Felton when it suited their needs last year despite his loyal service under D'Antoni. Never mind that business is business in the NBA, where it's understood that management and players always cut the best deals they can cut.

 

The Knicks are making this personal, and letting their emotions shape a decision that should be made at room temperature. There's no good reason to believe that Lin, a better player than Felton last year, won't be a better player than Felton next year and beyond.

 

Lin is four years younger, with a greater upside. As for the Knicks' pressing concern that Lin's third-year salary will saddle them with four players (including Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler) eating up $75 million, leaving them with a luxury tax bill in the tens of millions, what happened to the one positive Dolan forever brought to the table -- his willingness to spend, spend, spend?

 

Does he no longer share Mikhail Prokhorov's hunger for the no-budget kill? And shouldn't the Knicks be confident they can move one of those expiring contracts in the summer of 2014 -- say, Stoudemire's $23 million -- to a team that is under the salary cap and looking for another big deal to dump from its books in 2015?

 

The Knicks keep saying they're in a win-now mode, and yet there's no way Felton over Lin is a win-now proposition. Put the Miami Heat on truth serum and ask them if they'd prefer the Knicks with Felton, who's already maxed out, or with Lin, who could flower into the real thing.

Or ask these three Hall of Famers I polled about Lin during the season.

 

Willis Reed: "Jeremy Lin reminds me so much of Walt Frazier. It's how Jeremy controls the game, gets the ball to the right people for easy baskets, the lobs he's throwing to Tyson Chandler -- it all reminds me of Clyde."

 

Bob Cousy: "He's got the physical skills to reach a good, very good, or great level in this league. He's exactly what the Knicks needed, a leader and someone to distribute the ball as opposed to a bunch of guys just letting it fly."

 

Pete Carril: "Jeremy's innocent, he's young, he has no agenda, he throws the ball to the right guy. He's awfully fast, he can shoot, he can dribble and it doesn't look like he cares about playing for stats or money."

 

As it turned out, Lin does care about playing for money. He had every right to go for the big bucks, especially after half the NBA told him he wasn't good enough to remain employed, and the most recent franchise to cut him, Houston, decided to make him rich.

 

Anthony said he wanted Lin back, but called the $25.1 million contract "ridiculous." You know what's really ridiculous?

 

Ditching a 23-year-old player who saved the season and getting nothing in return.]