Lin is a rotation player on a good team. However he would not start on the Bulls, Pacers, Hawks or Nets. He would start for the Knicks, but they have a black hole at the point guard position.
For a very inconsistent and a mistake prone player like Lin? $4 million or so and no more. If Lin was not overpaid, Morey would not have been having a hard time trading him. The market is telling you that Lin is overpaid.
OR it was telling Morey that he was asking for too much. Remember, Morey is always looking to "win" the trade. He's never going to offer or ask for a player at "fair value". It's not like he was able to move Asik either....
The real JLin play, and not the Linsanity? You mean Linsanity was not real JLin play? I am shaking my head laughing at some laughable comments like this. Does he have the same coach or offensive system here? It is like: You go shopping in a luxurious furniture shop and find a piece of furniture that looks shiny and gorgeous in the display room. It is limited in quantity so you outbid everyone for this piece of furniture because you love it so so much. After you bring it home, you find it so out of place in your living room, which has a totally different artistic style. Then out of rage, you start telling others how bad this furniture is: it is POS, worth nowhere near its price; don't EVER buy it because I bought it and IT'S UGLY AS F***.
There is a simple fact you can look at when you want to evaluate Lin's next contract. Please answer this question first : Name one single playoff team this season that will rather have Lin as their starting PG instead of their current one. Check the teams in the west top 9, the answer is NONE. Check the teams in the east top 9, the answer probably is none (maybe except Felton, yes but NYK passed on Lin because of his contract even when his value was at the all time high) So that will leave you with the rebuilding teams or tanking teams. west : Min? why will they think Lin is better than Rubio? Sac? nah Dev? no. NO? no with a healthy Holiday. Utah? no as they still believe in Burke. East : Cle? No Orl? No as they are developing Oladipo Boston? No even if they will trade away Rondo, their GM is too smart to overpay for a PG in a rebuilding process Pil? no because of MCW Det? No as they are already a mess and want to get rid of every single contracts they have So there you go, only Mil or the Lakers left that MAY consider Lin to be their starting PG in the next couple years. Do you really think this could happen with the Lakers even though all those dumb decisions they made recently? So, eventually you are counting on the Bucks to offer Lin a starting PG contract? Or somehow the Zen master and Dolan will both got drugged and decide to resign Lin again? REALLY?! If not, then check how much on average a backup PG will make in this league and that's about what Lin will get for his next contract.
I think it really depends on the team and role. His production drops drastically if he's not the primary playmaker but as the lead guy he's fairly effective. So, Lin as the best guard of a team is better than Jeff Teague but Lin as a role player on a team is worse. The problem is, a Lin lead team won't win a championship so a great team will need him to be a role player. In that way, I think he's similar to Tyreke Evans. Both put up great numbers as "the man" but struggle when asked to be complementary players. I also don't think either will make more than the mid-level exception after their current sizable contracts.
Elvis like Linsanity are BOTH DEAD! The quicker you accept this reality, the better JLIN will be for it! Even when JLin is with the second unit and is the primary ball handler (without Harden) he's still doesn't play at Linsanity level, he scores 25pts one night then scores 7pts the next two games, is that Linsanity? If he played anywhere close to the Linsanity level, do you really think he would be playing second fiddle to Harden? Linsanity was lightning in a bottle, but guess what the lightning got out and all were left with is the bottle! You think you're helping him by having his back, but actually you're harming him more by insisting that Linsanity live's on! ....... ....... .......
Nope. Teams were and are still interested in Asik. Defensive centers like Asik are hard to come by. Morey was asking a lot for Asik and was right to hold on to him for the garbage that was being offered. Asik wouldnt even be in the market had he not forced the issue. Morey has been trying to off-load Lin long before Asik went in the market. He does not need to ask too much for Lin. He should be happy with whatever he gets. As of right now, he is getting nothing for Lin.
Who are you going to get a 2nd round pick from? This would only happen if we agreed to take on another bad contract or give up a player like DMO.
Let me put it this way for you... There are bigger issues at hand if the GM was not trying to trade a player that was not a good fit with the starting team yet commanding a starting PG salary AND he is one of the big salaries that you need to shed and you can trade to improve the the Harden-Dwight combo. It is not Houston Rocket science. If you want to live in denial, that is your choice. Unless you want Morey to come out and say, "listen guys, I am trading Lin. who wants?" you are not going to get concrete proof until Lin is no longer in Houston. And good luck getting that kind of proof from ANY GM.
Take a second round for Lin? Dream on. The reality is : the Rockets will be lucky to find a team willing to take on his huge contract next year. The best bet will be : you need to hope more of the prospects will stay in college for next year and won't be available for this coming draft. Hence, there will be teams outside of the top 3 still may not get any good enough impact player for their rebuild and will seriously consider tanking for another year, in such case, they will need some contracts to reach the minimum salary floor - think Utah and 76 ers, in such case, Morey will probably need to send them Lin + cash + and even maybe a protected future first round pick and/or maybe D-Mo.
Houston is stuck with Lin until his contract is up. The best we can hope for is his game to improve or find someone more capable to replace him and let him rot on the bench.
You do know that Morey does not have the final say in trades, it's Les Alexander. Les was the one who pushed for the Lin signing, and from a business point of view, Lin is good for him and the Rockets.
Here's some analysis for your consideration, three possible trade options that show the possibility of trading Lin away for cap space (if needed to sign a free agent outright): 1) Firstly, I want to bring up the Utah Jazz and their transactions last year of Andres Biedrins, Brandon Rush, and Richard Jefferson as a model for what I'm describing in the numbers below. (By the way, the Jazz' GM is Dennis Lindsey.) The Utah Jazz basically "paid" a little over $24 million for 2 future first round draft picks "unprotected", and 3 future second round draft picks. The 2 future picks are from the Golden State Warriors, their 2014 and 2017 picks. The 2014 pick will obviously be in the low 20's and who knows what will happen with that 2017 pick. It could turn out to be the #1 pick but the odds of it even being a lottery pick are relatively small. The cost to the Jazz for those picks was a little over $24 million because that is what they paid Biedrins, Rush, and Jefferson to basically jack around and help them lose games. (They had to pay out 90% of the cap anyways.) So, let's take Lin's contract and consider it dead wood like those contracts are. (It's not. Lin actually has playing value on the floor far better than any of those guys did.) But Lin's salary is a $15 million cost that is going to actually have to be paid next season. That is 62.5% of what the Jazz paid for 2 future first round picks and 3 future second rounders. So what would 62.5% of those picks be? Well, split the first rounders and throw in 2 second rounders...make the first rounder unprotected in 2017 or some future year that is far enough ahead that there is at least the possibility that it could turn into a lottery pick. So.....if we could find a team similar to the Jazz of last year...that has gobs of cap space and they are planning on going to the lottery, they aren't going to be able to attract a max free agent....then there's the possibility of moving Lin out for no incoming salary if we throw in some combination of a future unprotected first plus a couple future second rounders(Portland picks!). Or...possibly some other combination of assets could be sent out with Lin to make a trade work for him that would essentially be us getting our cap space back or using Lin's outgoing salary plus Asik's outgoing salary to trade for a superstar or other assets. ============================================================== With that in mind here's another option that could possibly net enough value to get a team to trade for Lin: 2) $15 million actual salary - $3.3 million cash in trade allowance - $3 million (cost to buy first round draft pick traded with Lin. This figure is debatable of course but if it is unprotected in a future season it would seem on the low side.) _______________________ = * $8.7 million net cost to team Lin is traded to for the following assets: * Lin * unprotected future first round draft pick * Lin's expiring contract flip-able at the trade deadline for other possible draft picks * Lin's contract counting $15 million towards the 90% salary requirement thereby possibly saving a team several million dollars if they are staying under the cap and simply trying to meet the 90% of cap salary minimum. We would give the cash plus a pick and the team would have to be a bad team (Philly, Utah, others) with cap space to absorb him for the pick and cash with the thought of possibly flipping him to another team at next year's deadline....or keeping him and letting his contract expire while saving over $6.6 million on next seasons required 90% minimum salary outlay. This is a trade that could "possibly" be done right after season this year or possibly early in the off-season. =============================================================== 3) Now, here's a scenario that I believe is possible (after October 1) and I've been waiting for confirmation from a second source whether it absolutely is possible. But I'm going to stick it in this thread because I have been waiting for quite some time now for that second confirm and it hasn't come. Maybe this will spur on some of the rest of you with connections to the league to find out of this is absolutely true. So...this is what I think is possible. I've had one source confirm it. According to: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q111 we can advance Lin $4.187 million on October 2, 2014. This figure is 50% of his "base" salary of $8.374 million. So if we traded Lin after October 2 after advancing him $4.187 million then the math could look something like this for the team trading for Lin: $15 million actual salary - $3.3 million cash in trade allowance - $3 million (Once against just an estimated cost value to buy a first round draft pick traded with Lin which I think is low.) - $4.187 million advanced to Lin after October 1, 2014 (50% of his base salary and Lin would have to agree to the advance) _______________________ = * $4.513 million net cost for these actual assets: * Lin * unprotected future first round draft pick * Lin's expiring contract flip-able at the trade deadline for other possible draft picks * Lin's contract counting $15 million towards the 90% salary requirement thereby possibly saving a team several million dollars if they are staying under the cap and simply trying to meet the 90% of cap salary minimum. For your consideration.
