Rockets want Lin because he would help Dwight sell in Asia, which would give Dwight a financial incentive to stay.
Absolutely! If we get Lin, we will get Howard. He will realize it ls the best place for him now the other markets are out.
I agree that's what Morey wants but that may be a deal breaker for the Magic. The magic want to unload a minimum of three bad contracts and receive a minimum of 2 firsts 2 rookies (lamb Terrence Jones) , 2 young vets (Parsons, Paterson) and Kmarts expiring. That is there starting point. And that is probably why the deal is being held up and the Magic are looking elsewhere. I would say our odds of getting Dwight are slim if we don't take at least 3 bad contracts.
I mean Howard would make this team a little better in the 2013 season but everyone knows the Rockets still won't be a championship team with just Howard as the number 1 guy. Plus 90% chance Howard will bolt from the Rockets as soon as the season is over and the Rockets be left with some bad contracts, no draft picks and our young prospect in Orlando. Either way, rebuilding now isn't as exciting as it sounds but it will better this team down the road than Howard playing here for just one season.
So should we be hoping Chicago and NY don't match? That way we won't be able to take back as many bad contracts?
With this I think the 2nd round pick in 2015 from the Knicks becomes more valuable too. Morey is brilliant. Knicks looks like they're ready to implode. They sucked last season before Lin but now hopefully they suck without him again.
Hedo and duhon have buyout options in 2013. And we have to hope that the young talent around Howard can flourish.
The plan is for Lin to improve our low attendence figures and get us some nationally televised games. What he can provide on the court is a bonus. That's why we offered him more money per year than we offered Dragic. Lin will provide that extra marketability regardless of whether we're a contender. The amount of national attention that his free agency has generated is a testament to that. No other player besides Dwight has had more coverage this summer.
That is an interesting article, but they keep going back to the notion that the Rockets would take all of their unwanted contracts. In order to do this, the Rockets would have to send all three of this year’s draft picks in addition to the players mentioned in order to get anywhere close to being under the luxury tax threshold, which would then turn Houston into the team that Howard already hated. A bunch of bad contracts with no young players or draft picks doesn't sound like Morey’s plan at all. I really think they are just waiting for some of the recently acquired guys to become trade eligible again. So while they are correct that the Rockets could do that, I don't think that will ultimately be the deal. I could see them giving up Martin, Lamb, Patterson (and/or Morris) and some picks while taking on a contract like Hedo, Davis or Richardson (maybe even two). One thing to remember is that Morey’s ultimate plan is to be able to sign another max player next summer and I don’t think he does anything in the acquisition of Howard to jeopardize that. I think one of the things that everyone overlooks is that this deal takes a Magic team that had nearly $80M in salary this year (well into the luxury tax) and drops them down to $40M next year and $20M the year after that while giving them young talent and multiple draft picks. They would be stupid to walk away from that. Howard is not playing for them again. They need to face reality and try to maximize their return (which would not be a max-signed Brook Lopez). Their biggest problem was trying to add players around Dwight and overpaying for crap like Arenas. The new GM just has to have the confidence that he can build a team better than the previous regime.
Spot on. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...in-played-well People are saying all kinds of horrible things about Jeremy Lin now. One idea is that he's all about the money -- even though he may lead the league in endorsements declined. Another idea is that he is not very competitive -- even though he has been fending off skeptics with hard work and great play for half a decade. Another idea suggested here and there is that he's not worth a medium-sized NBA contract because he's not that good of a player, especially on defense. Here's where the whole project starts to reek of revisionist history. My two cents: Jeremy Lin IS a risk because he has only played at an elite level for 886 minutes, and everything about that has the chance to be a little fluky. Regression to the mean can hurt. Jeremy Lin IS a risk because after that short stint playing long minutes, he was injured. It seems a little nuts to project his health for the next 246 regular season games (three seasons, or the scope of his next contract) when he was shelved after his first 26 games of regular playing time. With Greg Oden as my witness, some bodies aren't meant for the NBA grind. There's no special reason to suspect Lin will have trouble, but you'd feel better if he had 200 NBA games under his belt. Jeremy Lin IS NOT a risk because during the 26 games of Linsanity he didn't play very well. The simple truth is that, even if you count in his bad games, he was tremendous. One of the simplest glances at a players' effect is to tally how the team plays when that player is on the floor. Plus/minus is an imprecise tool, but it's no good ignoring it entirely. It's like looking outside to guess what the weather will be like -- look at the satellite image too, but don't forget to look at the sky. It's the heart of common sense. And it cuts through a lot of hocus-pocus. Box score stats can make superstars out of players who put up big numbers without winning much. Case in point: Carmelo Anthony. The fact is the Knicks were very good with Lin on the floor. Far better than they were with Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler or Amare Stoudemire. BasketballValue's rankings show that if you adjust for the other nine players on the floor -- who he's playing with and against -- Lin was literally the Knick who enjoyed the most success last year. Even in terms of raw plus/minus, simply tallying the team's performance when Lin played, he was one of a small handful of Knicks who were starkly in the positive last season. Anthony, Chandler and Stoudemire all played much more, and therefore had much more opportunity to both fail or succeed, but all were squarely negative. Setting aside team effects, and cleverly rounding up scoring, rebounding, assists and other box score contributions, Lin was the second-best Knick in terms of PER, just behind Anthony and among point guards squarely in the Steve Nash/Ty Lawson range. Lin's also better than Raymond Felton by virtually every measurable method. Nate Silver has done some rough-and-ready projections, for The New York Times, about the value of a good point guard. Anything close to last year's productivity and Lin is worth what the Rockets are offering -- simply for his play on the court. Of course, in a discussion about money, Lin's impact cannot be ignored on the business side, where he is second only to LeBron James in terms of potential to affect a team's bottom line. Teams don't profit directly from jersey sales, but in-arena sponsorships, local TV deals, ticket sales and overall team value could all reasonably be expected to jump on any team Lin plays for. There are reasons not to pay Lin a ton of money, mostly to do with the fact that it's hard to know what you're going to get. But less fuzzy is what the Knicks actually got, which was stellar play that resulted in the Knicks outplaying opponents. Let's not be confused about that. As long as that's so, the only really powerful reason I can see for the Knicks to let Lin walk is if they have other, better plans for those dollars and cap space down the road -- perhaps, as has long been whispered, Chris Paul.
And even more simple if you can't face reality; in sports and business the bottom-line rules. Crunching numbers and shuffling players in and out doesn't count in either. Look, if he lands Howard, doesn't give away the farm, convinces him to stay, builds a compliment of players around, builds the Rockets into a contender, THEN he is a genius. Right now he is just busy.
Morey likes Lin - watch this vid for his comments on Lin http://www.nba.com/video/channels/n...308_barry_mit_nyk_lin_per_feat.nba/index.html
I used to feel the same way, until I realized there is no team Orlando can leverage to get all of that. The Rockets just have to beat the best available offer.
So, it's genius, or failure? Please. Don't come with these weak-ass straw dog arguments and then presume to condescend to me with that line of garbage. You are no more "facing reality" than any of the other mental midgets curling into the fetal position and ****ting their pants with every move this off-season.
The Knicks can't bring him back, not when their "best player" wants him gone. An interesting thought, however, is NY calling up Orlando and offering to swap Marshmallow for Dwight.
