Two Lin Stories on ESPN

Rox changed the contract terms... not Lin thats well known...

for Lin to not sign the agreement... would have ment Lin would have gone back to New York empty handed... to a team trying to low ball him...

from day 1

plus Lins camp called the Knicks to tell them of the changes they were told we will get back to you...

 

The first red flags came on July 1, according to a source close to Lin, when the Knicks failed to place the obligatory 12:01 a.m. ET phone call. While three other teams, including Toronto and Dallas, called Lin as soon as possible, the Knicks waited until 12:15 a.m. to contact Montgomery. And rather than call him, they sent him a text, saying they'd prefer to talk later on Sunday unless the Lin camp felt they needed to speak immediately, according to a source. They agreed to speak Sunday afternoon.

While it may not seem like a big deal, Lin's camp felt the Knicks' nonchalant approach was a show of disrespect and took it as a sign that the Knicks might play hardball. When the parties did speak, their feelings were confirmed.


Montgomery and Tanner were hoping to receive an offer. The Knicks could offer Lin a four-year deal worth $24.3 million before he even hit the open market. While sources say Lin still would have tested the market -- where other clubs could offer as much as $40 million over four years, complete with the "poison pill'' -- Lin's representatives felt a Knicks offer right off the bat would have shown that New York was truly prioritizing him as much as they said.

While no one claims Lin would have definitely taken less money to stay in New York, one source close to him says a reasonable Knicks offer on July 1 -- and "reasonable" in this case meant the full four years, $24.3 million -- would have made it tough for him to leave the team.

"If they had made that type of offer, he probably would be in New York right now," the source said. "It would have made it difficult for offers from other teams to really sway him because his goal and his heart was to go back to New York. I can't say for sure that he would've turned down a larger offer from another team, but when your incumbent team comes at you and offers you as much as it can, that shows that you're a priority. That would have made it difficult to look elsewhere."

But instead of making an offer, the Knicks spoke in terms of concepts rather than numbers, a source said. And their concept, according to the source, was for Lin to sign a front-loaded contract that actually decreased in the third year of the deal, with no mention of a fourth year. Considering that the most Lin could get in the first year of the deal was $5.3 million, it seemed to Lin's representatives that the Knicks were asking him to settle for $4 million or even less in the third year. Sources close to the Knicks would not confirm that the figures discussed were front-loaded or less than the maximum possible offer.

The Knicks' motivation for a front-loaded deal was to avoid a harsh penalty when the new luxury tax rules kick in for the 2014-15 season, the third year on a new Lin contract. The Knicks' apprehension about paying a steep tax later in the deal gave the Lin camp pause and led it to conclude for the first time that if Lin got a lucrative offer elsewhere, the Knicks probably would not match it.

While it may not seem like a big deal, Lin's camp felt the Knicks' nonchalant approach was a show of disrespect and took it as a sign that the Knicks might play hardball. When the parties did speak, their feelings were confirmed.

At that point, Lin's representatives began going on the offensive, telling clubs that were interested in Lin, most notably the Toronto Raptors, that the Knicks were not likely to match a lucrative offer. But most teams, still convinced the Knicks wouldn't let Lin go, didn't believe them.

Then along came the Houston Rockets. The Rockets had not called Lin at 12:01 on July 1, and had not been aggressively recruiting him. But when they finally reached out, the two sides agreed to meet in Houston on July 4. Lin met with Rockets coach Kevin McHale, who told him how well he'd fit into Houston's up-tempo, pick-and-roll offense.

Lin was already convinced of that, having watched Goran Dragic, a departing Rockets point guard, excel in McHale's scheme over the second half of the season. Dating back to before he was passed over in the 2010 draft, Lin had told people he felt his game was like Dragic's. It caused many to chuckle -- as in, "Why compare yourself to a reserve?" -- but Lin truly felt their games were similar.

While Lin spoke with McHale, Montgomery and Tanner talked to the Rockets' management. They spoke about the parameters of a deal, and Lin's camp left Houston believing it would eventually receive an offer. Conflicting reports had the Rockets expected to offer either four years, $28.8 million, or three years, $19 million. According to a source, Houston confirmed to the Knicks the size of the offer that had been discussed with Lin's representatives.

Such information, whether gained directly from Houston or indirectly from media reports, must have convinced New York, at least Woodson, that would be the Rockets' offer, because he told reporters at the Las Vegas summer league that Lin would "absolutely'' return, and return as the Knicks' starter. Media reports cited other sources that confirmed the Knicks planned to match.

Of course, the only official offer would be the one the Rockets actually presented to Lin (and to the Knicks, if Lin signed the offer sheet), and that one had not yet been finalized. Houston, whether spurred on by Woodson's comments or not, eventually offered Lin the maximum that it could in a three-year deal, giving him $14.9 million in the final year to bring the total to $25.1 million. Lin signed the offer sheet on July 13.

While Lin's reps didn't have to call the Knicks, they telephoned Knicks GM Glen Grunwald to tell him about the offer. After sharing the numbers with Grunwald, they asked him for a reaction. According to a source, Grunwald said the Knicks had three days to match and he'd let them know once they got the offer.


Things got a bit strange at that point, with Grunwald seemingly avoiding the Rockets in Las Vegas in order to buy more time before receiving the offer. Lin didn't understand what was happening, but it eventually dawned on his representatives that the Knicks were working on an alternative plan just in case they decided not to match the offer. When Lin saw reports about the Knicks trading for Raymond Felton, he realized his days in New York might be numbered.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8179341/nba-jeremy-lin-six-degrees-separation-lin-camp

 

Did I say Lin changed the terms? I'm just correcting the person who said Lin didn't agree to two agreements, which is technically incorrect. And I have no problems with Lin signing whatever final contract he got as I already stated.

 

Okay, nyk fan from realgm. It's one thing to follow a player you like but to follow a player you don't even really like is strange.

Like many people have said on here, Lin signed one official contract and that was it. You can talk about the verbal agreement all you want but at the end of the day, the kid signed one contract. It's not Lin's fault that NY made foolish statements, like "absolutely we'll match" or "anything up to a billion dollars" after they heard of the rumored verbal agreement. It's not Lin fault that the Rockets had no PG option, so they pissed on the Knicks and made the official contract offer at 25k.

The issue is people want to twist this around and put most, if not all of the blame on Lin.

Carry on ignored buddy.

 

Speaking of the one they call lin here is his best tweet ever:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Shoutout to @<a href="https://twitter.com/chandlerparsons">chandlerparsons</a> for promoting diversity... <a href="http://t.co/R6yVh1mb" title="http://twitter.com/JLin7/status/253649449644077056/photo/1">twitter.com/JLin7/status/2…</a></p>&mdash; Jeremy Lin (@JLin7) <a href="https://twitter.com/JLin7/status/253649449644077056" data-datetime="2012-10-04T00:15:16+00:00">October 4, 2012</a></blockquote>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

A lot of the Knicks fans that posted in the link with the 4000+ comments are really ignorant. Lin should be really glad he's in Houston now and not in NY. Some of them were saying Jeremy Lin didn't want to play in the Olympics select team because he didn't want to get exposed crap... They don't understand that Lin couldn't play because he hasn't sign a contract first and it was the Knicks fault that didn't offer him a contract in the first place causing him to sit out on the great opportunity.

Most of them keep blabbering on about how J. Lin sucks because the Heat shut him down. I mean, they expecting an undrafted rookie that who never got a chance to play and expect him to dominate against the best team in the NBA. The Heat being able to shut Lin down is really not surprising at all. Because they shut everyone down. The Heat shut down the MVP PG Derrick Rose last year in the playoffs.

Its like all the little things they point out reminds me of the ignorance similar to Stephen A Smith. Little things like he can't dribble left is stupid. All NBA PGs are able to dribble left. If they can't, they wouldn't be in the NBA in the first place. Also, the turnover prone stuff that many are pointing out. Well, I think any young rookie PGs with basically no experience will have tons of mistakes and turnovers when they are thrown out onto the court and have to play big minutes out of nowhere. Look at Westbrook, he has some of the most outrageous turnovers.

The fact that some are talking down on the Rockets saying that our organization and team isn't on their level really boils me inside. Every expert in their right mind knows that the Rockets took the Knicks to school. Even though the Rockets doesn't have a star studded team like the Knicks, they are in a rebuilding process and I much rather be in this position than having to be stuck in a position where the Knicks have 3 max players on their roster and the two of them can't play together. Also the fact that the Knicks are bringing in all these players that are in the twilight of their careers. The Knicks will make the playoffs but they are a first round exit team or 2nd round at best. They will be stuck in that position with Melo and Amare on that team.

Melo is a good scorer but he will never be a champion. Very similar to Tmac. In the history of the NBA, all the teams that trade their star player away usually gets worst and the team that receive the star improves. Well in this case, the Knicks got worst when they got Melo and the Nuggets improve dramatically. But given the Knicks track record post Ewing era, I'm not surprise. That's why I am glad and proud to be a Rockets fan and not the Knicks.

 

LOL, I've never posted at Realgm.

 

Lin's weaknesses are overblown in comparison to others and it's really annoying, but really not much you can do about it, but argue over and over with those people, which becomes a waste of time after a while. It really just means he's a very high profile player. The media definitely plays a large part in it by keeping on mentioning him and using him by writing these articles to get people to click on the links and commentate.