Tag Archives: NBA CBA

This morning fans of the New York Knicks woke up to the news that the Knicks would not be matching the $25 million offer sheet given to Jeremy Lin by the Houston Rockets.  The deadline to match was last night at 11:59.  Through a Knick official, they informed the press and the Houston Rockets that Jeremy Lin was now no longer their property and was free to take his talents to the big ol state of Texas.

Most fans greeted this news with outrage that James Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks, picked this time to become frugal when he has repeatedly in the past paid the luxury tax despite fielding a much weaker team.

I decided that it were appropriate to talk to someone who is completely removed from the sport of basketball and from sports in general but was aware of Linsanity as it was happening.  As always, this is a fictitious person who shall remain nameless.

1. What happened to Linsanity?  How come he’s no longer on the team?

It isn’t easy to say exactly why he’s no longer on the team.  The Houston Rockets decided that he was worth a 3 year $25 million contract.  Its pretty crazy, he was waived by the Rockets in the beginning of the season before the Knicks picked him up but the Rockets were so adamant that they wanted him back that they gave him this offer sheet that the Knicks just had to match.

2.  How come the Rockets thought he was worth it now when they originally waived him?

Linsanity was huge and I would like to think that the prospects of continuing their relationship with China was important.  They had Yao Ming, a Chinese center who was a major attraction as a global phenomenon.  Adding Lin to continue their global (read: Chinese) branding was a smart move.  Knicks fans also feel that Darryl Morey has a particular fetish for screwing over the Knicks.

3.  Why do you think the Rockets are screwing them over?  Didn’t The Rockets offer him a larger contract?  What the problem with accepting that contract?

Its not quite that simple.  Well, at least according to James Dolan.  The NBA had a lockout that eventually led to a brand new CBA.  This CBA was supposed to allow teams to keep their players and the Knicks even won a motion prior to the free agency period that allowed the Knicks to have Jeremy Lin’s Bird rights.  Bird rights are the ability of any team to extend their salary cap space in order to resign the player.  Usually Bird rights are achieved when a player stays with the team for 3 seasons but the Knicks won a motion on Lin and Novak- players who were waived and whom the Knicks picked up off of waivers- to get it.

Darryl Morey, the Rockets GM, took advantage of this new CBA as well by offering Jeremy Lin a 3 year $25 million deal.  In this deal, the Rockets would pay $8 million a year while the Knicks would have to pay $5.1 million for the first two years and then $14.8 million for that last year.

4.  How is it fair that the Knicks have to pay it like that?

According to the CBA that’s how the payments would be structured for the Knicks.  That last year is what’s known as a “poison pill” meant to stop teams from matching.  The CBA was very ambitious in trying to both help teams keep their players and to help player movement.  We all know that’s the equivalent of having their cake and eating it too.  The new CBA has far worse tax penalties for teams who are repeat offenders of going over the luxury tax threshold and thus place a greater burden on them and give those who remain financially clean a much greater advantage.  In year 3, given the new tax, the Knicks who would be over the luxury tax would have to pay up $42 million in tax penalties for Jeremy Lin alone.

For most teams that would make them reconsider, but for a team like the Knicks who make money hand over fist (they own their own network and are in the media capital of the world), the ability of them to market Lin alone would justify that tax hit thanks to how popular Linsanity is and became during his run and the overall Asian population in the world.

5. So why didn’t the Knicks match when it makes financial sense?

Well, financially it makes sense but there’s an argument to be made whether it makes sense basketball wise.  This is a guy who was let go by the Golden State Warriors, his hometown team, and by the Houston Rockets before being picked up by the Knicks.   Though to be fair, the Rockets were forced to cut him thanks to a numbers game at point guard.  He came into Mike D’Antoni’s system where point guards with any kind of athleticism can excel in and, well, excelled.  He then got injured and didn’t play for the rest of the regular season all in all making his 2011-2012 season a total of 25 starts and 36 games suited up in.  Turning 25 starts into $25 million is quite the feat even for a kid from Harvard but there are questions about whether he can sustain that performance in Mike Woodson’s isolationist scheme.  His numbers dipped when he had to play with Carmelo Anthony, who the organization has pinned their hopes on to lead them to a championship, and they never got any momentum going.

6. So wait, Lin has ONLY played 25 games in his professional career?  That’s a pretty short time to suddenly be wanting a huge contract don’t you think?

A valid point, one which JR Smith had also brought up.  He said that a lot of players would have a problem with Lin making that kind of money when he hasn’t proven himself over a long period of time.  But to answer your first question, no, he has played in more games than that but his career really began when he started for the Knicks.  The Knicks were 8-15 when Lin entered the starting line up and they won their next 7 games to reach .500 where Lin averaged 18 points and 8 assists, pretty nice numbers for a guy who just entered the line up from off the waiver wire.

7. So if he isn’t that experienced why are so many Knick fans upset?

Well that part has very little to do with Lin and more to do with the ownership of the Knicks, namely James Dolan.  Dolan has made some, how do you say, TERRIBLE personnel decisions and this one is his greatest and sadly his dumbest move to date, atleast according to the majority of fans I’ve spoken to.  In 2015, there is no doubt that the Knicks will be taxpayers.  Give or take a few million the Knicks were in the red to begin with so the idea that they would suddenly get stingy makes no sense to any Knick fan.  Knicks fans fondly remember teams with Penny Hardaway and Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry paying luxury tax year after year and producing little to nothing.

The other part of this that’s complicating matters is the arrival of the Brooklyn Nets.  There are now two franchises in New York and the Nets threaten to take a borough of New York and who knows how many more fans with them when they open for business this October in Brooklyn.  This is the kind of move that could divide the fanbase and force them to turn their affections and dollars towards the new kid in town.  This is the first time the Knicks fan has ever had anything remotely close to a competing product to choose from since New Yorkers fail to acknowledge New Jersey’s existence.  This is a crucial time for the Knicks to not screw around with their fan base and the fan base, for better or worse believed in Linsanity.  Now, is their faith warranted?  Sure, there’s a chance that Lin will turn into the superstar that he has the potential to be OR he will be a supreme bust (supreme because he has a long term contract now and its the only thing that anyone wants to talk about).  That’s the spectrum here.

The point is the fans LOVED him and it shows poor judgement to waste that because of a tiny misunderstanding.

8. So this is all a misunderstanding?

Kind of.  The reason, according to sources within the Dolan camp, that the Knicks aren’t retaining Lin is that they feel betrayed.  For better or worse, James Dolan is a man who puts loyalty first and he feels that Lin was being disloyal to the first franchise that gave him a real shot.  They supported him when, at 85%, opted NOT to play in the playoffs despite numerous players deciding to play if put in his position and in spite of their lack of point guard depth as the series went on.

In defense of Lin, Dolan did advise Lin to seek out his market value and should have seen this coming when Lin came back with this “ridiculous contract” as Carmelo Anthony so eloquently put it.  Once Lin came back with the offer the Knicks were reportedly set to match it however Dolan’s camp learned that Lin had went back to the Rockets to renegotiate.  This infuriated Dolan and forced his hand in bringing back Raymond Felton and former Knick Kurt Thomas.

9. Kurt Thomas?  I loved that guy!  Isn’t he a 100 years old?  But doesn’t this mean that the Knicks can put that $25 million into signing Chris Paul next year?

Unfortunately that money was and can only be given to Jeremy Lin thanks (again) to the Bird rule which only allows the Knicks to stretch their payroll for their own players as opposed to signing free agents.  So the Knicks are now still in salary cap hell and have very little wiggle room to improve their roster for the next three years.  Kurt Thomas is currently the oldest player in the league and yes he played with the Knicks a lifetime ago.  But he can still be a useful veteran you know to put six hard fouls into Lebron, Wade, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook or anyone else hoping to drive to the paint.

10. Speaking of Veterans didn’t the Knicks also sign Jason Kidd, and Marcus Camby?

::Nodding sadly::.

11. So what now for the Knicks?

The Knicks now have no choice but to win in order to win back some of their fans and some of those on the fence on joining the Brooklyn-ites.  The fans will certainly be upset by Lin’s departure claiming its just another example of how James Dolan doesn’t care and has no clue about anything except doing whatever the hell he pleases.  While it is his right to spend his money as he wishes, fans are not that forgiving and may wind up vacating the Garden to go over to the Barclay’s Center.

This was probably the wrong time to get such an easy decision wrong.  The Knicks still had an out here.  In the CBA there’s a stretch provision which would have allowed the Knicks to literally stretch the last year of that contract over three years so that the tax hit wouldn’t have been that great.  The Knicks could have also used him as an expiring contract in that final poisonous year and gotten a trade exception.  There were reasons to let him go and keep him but there are just so many more reasons to keep him that it boggles the mind how vindictive one person can be in order to prove a point.  Dolan could’ve swallowed his pride and re-signed him because he was going to pay a heavy tax that year anyway with Amar’e, Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony all entering the final years of their huge contracts.  But he chose to spin this as Jeremy being less than honest in his attempt to secure a much better future for himself.

12. So you’re saying that this was bad for the Knicks?

Surprisingly I don’t.  Look, was Linsanity great?  Absolutely.  He was entertaining and fun and made the Knicks relevant again.  The Knicks are going for it all and having a 23 year old point guard come of age would’ve been nice, but the Knicks aren’t suddenly going to tank.  And if the Knicks really are “All-In” this season as their moves have suggested the Knicks don’t have time for a player to work his way into a system and don’t have time for a player to get acclimated and for there to be the kind of drama that a Carmelo ANthony, Jeremy Lin supposed power struggle would have brought. Whether real or manufactured, it would’ve existed. The Knicks are always ones to make crazy moves, but anyone who thinks this is crazy are those that are under the assumption that having Lin would’ve made them better than the NBA Champions Miami Heat.  That’s crazy.

Unfortunately the Knicks are still not as good as the Heat and while losing Lin is tough for the Knicks, from a competitive standpoint nothing about the team’s chances have dramatically changed now that Raymond Felton is taking over for Lin.  Felton was unhappy and unproductive in Portland, I would imagine that will change now that everyone expects him to show up to camp weighing 300 pounds and unable to productively handle the point guard position.  He has played in NY before and was pretty good before he joined half the team in Denver in the Carmelo Anthony trade.  The fact that he doesn’t hold grudges over how it went down is probably a good sign and an indication that he had fun during his tenure here and can handle being the point guard.

On the face of it this seems like a bad decision temporarily but we really won’t know how bad or good this decision is until we see it play out.  The biggest negative in all of this is how much unnecessary pressure will be put on the Knicks to win early and often and get a top 4 playoff seed in the East.  The Heat and the Celtics have improved.  The Bulls are the Bulls.  The Pacers are bringing back a core that was a 3 seed.  The Hawks and Magic will obviously both take a hit with Joe Johnson leaving and Dwight on his way out but of course the Nets are there and the Sixers announced that their new free agent acquisition Kwame Brown is their starting center so needless to say that the Sixers are probably going to take a step back as well.  If the Knicks don’t at least fare better than the Nets heads will roll.

Every night will be a daily test and the blogosphere of crazed Linsanity fans will inundate the wire with every Jeremy Lin 20-10 game he has in a Rocket uniform.  This could all have been avoided had they matched.

13. So what are the chances that this works in the Knicks favor?

As always, these are the Knicks.  With all due respect to David Kahn, Jeremy Lin IS manna from heaven and James Dolan decided to say no to it inexplicably.  So what are the chances that this works in James Dolan’s favor?>  He literally sent down a gift from heaven, free from CAA’s control and having nothing to do with his influence and he decided to say no.  You ever say no to a gift from God?

14. No.

15. Are you going to start being a Nets fan now?

No.  It would sadly take much more than this to keep me away.  I’m programmed to handle this kind of heartbreak on a regular basis.  Anything good that happens is a result of sheer dumb luck and in this case that’s what Lin was.  It was a shot in the arm for a team desperate for one and yet even that wasn’t enough, but to suddenly walk away from a long term hazardous relationship that has left me with more scars than an abusive spouse would be dumb.  If I’m leaving having stayed after Jordan repeatedly destroyed my childhood, then Isiah came along to destroy my early to mid 20’s and decide to leave because the Knicks didn’t retain a 23 year old point guard who started 25 games,  I was never a fan to begin with.