NBA Offseason 2012 - Page 56

Agree that the amount of backlash the Knicks and Dolan got may have been excessive, but it didn't come from nowhere. This is an organization and owner who have well-established reputations and histories for poor-to-terrible decisions in one of the largest media outlets in the world who were letting a valuable player that virtually everyone considers to be a hugely valuable asset slip away for nothing. Even if they didn't feel he fit their team going forward, they should have planned things out better and gotten something back for him.

I also don't know that it's outrageous to suggest that part of the decision may have been based on Dolan's feelings or him letting things get personal. He's known for letting his own feelings or opinions get the better of him in business decisions. This article by Simmons discusses some of it: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/32425/sports-guy-vault-the-james-dolan-theory Plus, there were too many reports from different sources about how the Knicks and/or Dolan were upset or felt insulted by how things happened for it to have been completely untrue.



The key for me is that the first two years of Lin's deal were very reasonable and maybe even a bit of a steal for what he brought to the team both on and off the court. You can't really measure the feelings and excitement that he brought to the franchise, the testimonials and comments from Knicks fans really made him out to be a giant breath of fresh air and something to root for. Plus, there's the value of the positive impact he brought to the team by being such a perfect PR figure, which helped to balance out the poor PR the rest of the team had. For $5M/yr, that was great value IMO. That's not even factoring in the fact that he has demonstrated an incredible ceiling of play during Linsanity, and at least had the potential to be more than just an average PG. Felton and Kidd are topped out at what they are, and it's not impressive. Why not go with the option that at least gives you the chance at a player who could play a significant role in contending?

When you get to the third year, I agree that it becomes ridiculous and much harder to accept. But that was something that the Knicks wouldn't have had to deal with for two whole years, during which they could see what they had and plan around. As has been mentioned by many sources, the Knicks had a lot of ways to lessen the blow of a worst case scenario. And let's be clear, anything less than a worst case scenario would still have been a positive for the Knicks in their situation. They had and have no other good means to add appreciable assets to their roster, Lin was unique due to that lucky Bird rights ruling that allowed them to resign him without giving anything else up. This is not even addressing the abundance of money the Knicks/Dolan have at their disposal which they clearly had no problem overspending on other just as questionable expenditures.



The "stretch provision" was only ever supposed to be a way to lessen the blow of a worst case scenario in which Lin bottomed out completely and lost all value. Linsanity has made Lin into a desirable asset to other teams beyond what he brings to the court, so he'd have to regress pretty dramatically for him to suddenly become untradeable, particularly as a large expiring contract (which he would've been in that third year due to the fourth year being a team option). Think about that. Worst case scenarion, the Knicks are left with a huge expiring contract (always very desirable to teams) on a player with a built-in billion-large audience that no other teams have access to.

The only reason the "stretch provision" came into the picture was because the Knicks were indicating that they were considering not matching the Rockets' offer due to financial reasons. It wasn't discussed initially as a way of justifying such a move. I haven't read anything about possible limitations on the amount of times a team can use a "stretch provision", so I assume there is none. The only limitation I've read is that it can only apply to "new contracts", which I assume is any that is signed since the signed the most recent CBA.