NBA Season 2011-2012

They have to match it exactly or not at all.

jowner wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

The thing that galls me is that Anthony, JR Smith and the rest of those a-holes won. They won. They got their way by basically declaring that they were ready to make the locker room absolutely toxic if the Knicks signed Lin. They deserve each other. I hope they make the lottery every year and Carmelo leaves the NBA without a title. Congrats, I officially dislike you (Anthony) more than I disliked LeBron. Quite a feat.

where are you getting this perspective from?

mine is the Knicks balked at the potential cost while totally ignoring what Lin makes you in merchandising. You know cause Dolan is a massive {ableist slur}.

I'm not sure I understand either. What did they win? Lin wanted to leave or he would not have signed the offer with Houston, so if anything I think Lin won.

Once someone signs an offer sheet with another team, is the only choice the original team has is to match it? They can't make a counter offer that is structured differently? Like Houston had that backloaded 3rd year that would blow up the Knicks cap, they couldn't counter with a contract that had the money spread more evenly?

So basically the Knicks were dumb. Again.

JR Smith, Anthony and someone else came out to the media and called Lin's contract "ridiculous". That's unprecedented. Teammates usually shut up until a guy is out the door. Reason being that you might have to play with the guy if they match. But they knew that they held the power. And they do.

I'm not saying that's Dolan's main reason for not matching by any stretch. There are plenty of good basketball reasons and financial reasons even if I disagree. The fact remains, though, that there was a power struggle over whether the Knicks were a "team" or Anthony's team. Something that played out across the media and certainly in the locker room last year when the team chemistry fell apart once Anthony returned back from his injury.

Melo is a jerk. And he's a black hole for the ball. And he's a terrible teammate. Dolan had the choice to bail on the Melo experiment and instead he chose to bail on the Lin experiment. I think he made the wrong choice for chemistry reasons and because Melo has proven to be locker room cancer.

Is Melo even that good? Why is he on Team USA? Does he behave for the Olympics?

He is a named NBA guy but I have no history on why he is a known name.

fangblackbone wrote:

Is Melo even that good? Why is he on Team USA? Does he behave for the Olympics?

He is a named NBA guy but I have no history on why he is a known name.

http://hoopspeak.com/2012/07/carmelo...

Simply put, guys that can score 25 a night on 45% shooting, rebound well, AND have better than average assist rates are among the rarest commodities in basketball. Melo fits all that. He's also a very good clutch shooter.

Unfortunately how he gets to those statistical milestones are often detrimental to team play.

Blind_Evil wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Is Melo even that good? Why is he on Team USA? Does he behave for the Olympics?

He is a named NBA guy but I have no history on why he is a known name.

http://hoopspeak.com/2012/07/carmelo...

Simply put, guys that can score 25 a night on 45% shooting as well as rebound and have better than average assist rates are among the rarest commodities in basketball, and Melo fits all that. He's also a very good clutch shooter. Unfortunately how he gets to those statistical milestones are often detrimental to winning an entire game.

The problem is that winning as a Freshman at Syracuse forever makes him a "winner". Regardless of how much evidence piles up to the contrary.

I don't know, last Olympics I thought I remembered a lot of his teammates saying he was the MVP of the team and was the key to winning the gold.

I think the Knicks were right to not match that poison pill contract.

It was a 25 million dollar contract that was going to cost them 50+ million. Lin is a nice player with some upside, but not a 50 million in 3 years player.

Good article breaking the Lin mistake down.

It's not the third year of the Lin contract that put them over the cap. It's ALL of the (bad) contracts they have.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...

Why did they encourage him to test the market? Why not at least make an offer before it came to this?

Slumberland wrote:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...

Why did they encourage him to test the market? Why not at least make an offer before it came to this?

The Knicks were restricted by the CBA in how much they could offer Lin. The most they could offer him proactively as a restricted free agent was the mid-level exception amount, which for the Knicks was, I believe, around $3 million a year (since they are a tax payer and don't have cap room).

So, the way for Lin to make more money was for him to get an offer from another team (which could be higher than the MLE) and then have the Knicks match it. That had been the plan all along. Lin did what was appropriate -- sign an offer sheet with another team to set his market value, which was going to be higher than what the Knicks alone could offer, but which they had indicated all along they would match.

The poison pill nature of the third year should not have been a surprise to anyone -- particularly since the Raptors did it to the Knicks with Landry Fields just a week before. I really don't think this was about the money. It's about James Dolan being a colossal ass and a terrible, terrible owner. And that's coming from a life-long Knicks fan.

UPDATE: Here's a great piece by Dan Devine at the Ball Don't Lie blog about what really happened. In other words, it wasn't about money or basketball, it was about James Dolan.

Ah, I get it now. Makes sense.

DSGamer wrote:

The problem is that winning as a Freshman at Syracuse forever makes him a "winner". Regardless of how much evidence piles up to the contrary.

I almost never see him spoken of like that anymore. People are definitely figuring it out.

B Dog wrote:
Slumberland wrote:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...

Why did they encourage him to test the market? Why not at least make an offer before it came to this?

The Knicks were restricted by the CBA in how much they could offer Lin. The most they could offer him proactively as a restricted free agent was the mid-level exception amount, which for the Knicks was, I believe, around $3 million a year (since they are a tax payer and don't have cap room).

So, the way for Lin to make more money was for him to get an offer from another team (which could be higher than the MLE) and then have the Knicks match it. That had been the plan all along. Lin did what was appropriate -- sign an offer sheet with another team to set his market value, which was going to be higher than what the Knicks alone could offer, but which they had indicated all along they would match.

The poison pill nature of the third year should not have been a surprise to anyone -- particularly since the Raptors did it to the Knicks with Landry Fields just a week before. I really don't think this was about the money. It's about James Dolan being a colossal ass and a terrible, terrible owner. And that's coming from a life-long Knicks fan.

UPDATE: Here's a great piece by Dan Devine at the Ball Don't Lie blog about what really happened. In other words, it wasn't about money or basketball, it was about James Dolan.

I was under led to believe by whatever hack reporting I read that the Knicks could have offered Lin a max of $6mil/year over 4 years. But rather htan just make the offer, they preferred to see what other teams would offer him.

Lin's kind of contradicting himself in his latest statement.

"Honestly, I preferred New York," Lin said. "But my main goal in free agency was to go to a team that had plans for me and wanted me. I wanted to have fun playing basketball. ... Now I'm definitely relieved."

It's pretty obvious to me that he wanted out. Flying to Vegas to re-structure the deal after the Knicks said they would match the original. Taking less money with fewer years. He didn't want to go back.

This goes with what I said earlier. He possibly didn't want to come back because his teammates (Melo, Smith) are poison and the Knicks started acquiring point guards.

There's no evidence that I've seen (so far) that Lin or his agent initiated the renegotiation of the original Rockets offer. I think it's more likely that once the Rockets discovered that no one else had extended an offer to Lin and the Knicks were busy bragging about matching anything up to a billion dollars, they saw an opportunity to restructure the contract offer in a way to stick it to the Knicks and make it more likely they wouldn't match it.

What was Lin to do? It was the only offer on the table for him. He had to sign it. It's a business. James Dolan has overpaid marginal basketball players for more than a decade. As a Knicks fan, I'm all for him getting over that habit, but this wasn't about the money. This was about some perceived betrayal by Lin. The whole thing was poorly handled by both Lin's agents and the Knicks. Rockets GM Daryl Morey played them all.

DSGamer wrote:

JR Smith, Anthony and someone else came out to the media and called Lin's contract "ridiculous". That's unprecedented. Teammates usually shut up until a guy is out the door. Reason being that you might have to play with the guy if they match. But they knew that they held the power. And they do.

I'm not saying that's Dolan's main reason for not matching by any stretch. There are plenty of good basketball reasons and financial reasons even if I disagree. The fact remains, though, that there was a power struggle over whether the Knicks were a "team" or Anthony's team. Something that played out across the media and certainly in the locker room last year when the team chemistry fell apart once Anthony returned back from his injury.

Melo is a jerk. And he's a black hole for the ball. And he's a terrible teammate. Dolan had the choice to bail on the Melo experiment and instead he chose to bail on the Lin experiment. I think he made the wrong choice for chemistry reasons and because Melo has proven to be locker room cancer.

I read the ridiculous part as it was ridiculously setup that made it extremely hard for the Knicks to resign him. Not that he was getting a boat load of money ridiculous and he doesn't deserve it. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how management sold it to Carmelo also as to why they weren't bringing him back.

I think your scapegoating Carmelo a tad. Kidd and Camby just signed with the team and I'm pretty sure if Melo was such an awful guy the inner circles of the NBA would know and wouldn't be heading to NY. Especially when the real ass hat is Dolan.

B Dog wrote:

Rockets GM Daryl Morey played them all.

NERD ELVIS!!!!

I really hope he manages to get Howard. I'm tired of the Lakers. They can go into the wilderness for a couple of seasons or a decade.

This is the best article I've seen that puts Lin's new contract in perspective with other starting NBA point guards.
Link

Beckley Mason wrote:

Long story short: Instead of paying Lin the going rate for a starting point guard, the Knicks ended up signing Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd, two players who ranked at the bottom of starting point guards in the NBA, for nearly equivalent cost next season.

Quick Summary: Lin is probably getting paid at about the right market rate, in the same ballpark as Stuckey, Dragic, Devin Harris, George Hill, and Mike Conley, and more than guys like Jarret Jack and Andre Miller who are older guards with "veteran presence" but little upside at this point.

There's another thing that I don't feel like researching but seem to recall from reading/hearing about all this: Lin's second offer from Houston has more money guaranteed. Not 100% sure about that, but if true would at least explain his interest in this one over the last contract.

Houston, we have hijacked Linsanity!

Daryl Morey has finally done something exciting! For years we've joked that the most exciting guy the Rockets had was Morey.

I am more excited about the Rockets than I have been since the Tracy McGrady era still looked like it might pan out. Or maybe as excited as when they took the Lakers to game seven several years ago.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I am more excited about the Rockets than I have been since the Tracy McGrady era still looked like it might pan out. Or maybe as excited as when they took the Lakers to game seven several years ago.

Watch out for Royce White. Dude can play.

StaggerLee wrote:

There's another thing that I don't feel like researching but seem to recall from reading/hearing about all this: Lin's second offer from Houston has more money guaranteed. Not 100% sure about that, but if true would at least explain his interest in this one over the last contract.

You're correct. Original offer was 4 years $28 million with the fourth year being a team option for $9million. Guaranteed was 3 year $19.5.

Final offer is 3 years $25 million.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I am more excited about the Rockets than I have been since the Tracy McGrady era still looked like it might pan out. Or maybe as excited as when they took the Lakers to game seven several years ago.

Watch out for Royce White. Dude can play.

Dude has major issues with flying.

He's on medication for the anxiety disorder and will deal, I think.

I am very sad about the Lin thing, although I can convince myself into thinking he's a flash in the pan and will go for an unremarkable 12-5 in Houston.

That said, Carmelo is like A-Rod. He's on my team, and i'm required to hope he succeeds for my team, but i'll be damned if I like him.

Well, if Jason Kidd can restrain himself from wrapping his car around another tree this season, and Felton can remember he was in near all-star form before the Melo trade...

...god, we're not going to get out of the first round next year, are we?

AGAIN.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I am more excited about the Rockets than I have been since the Tracy McGrady era still looked like it might pan out. Or maybe as excited as when they took the Lakers to game seven several years ago.

Watch out for Royce White. Dude can play.

Dude has major issues with flying.

Now all he needs is a gold chain and a mohawk.

Prederick wrote:

I am very sad about the Lin thing, although I can convince myself into thinking he's a flash in the pan and will go for an unremarkable 12-5 in Houston.

That said, Carmelo is like A-Rod. He's on my team, and i'm required to hope he succeeds for my team, but i'll be damned if I like him.

Well out. That basically sums up my feelings on both teams.

Prederick wrote:

Well, if Jason Kidd can restrain himself from wrapping his car around another tree this season, and Felton can remember he was in near all-star form before the Melo trade...

...god, we're not going to get out of the first round next year, are we?

Yeah pretty much never getting past the first round.

The Celtics just got Courtney Lee. If they only had to give up JaJuan Johnson then they got a steal, but I'm guessing they had to add one of their two 2013 second round draft picks.
http://tracking.si.com/2012/07/19/ce...

They've very quietly had a strong offseason. Not doing anything spectacular, but adding important pieces that make them much better.

Signed Garnett
Signed Jeff Green
Signed Jason Terry
Sign and trade for Courtney Lee
Re-signed Brandon Bass
Signed Chris Wilcox
Drafted Jared Sullinger who has shined in the summer league, along with Dionte Christmas, Etwuan Moore, and Kris Joseph.

They're in a great position to make another run at the Heat this season.

Of course I'll deny I said this when Garnett blows out his knee in December, but I'm real happy with what Ainge was able to do this offseason