Knicks · Letting Lin walk is the right thing to do (page 2)

anrst wrote:Felton is a much better defender right (at least he is in NBA 2K) ... if this fits into Woodson's design to focus on D, i like it a lot.

CTKnicksfan wrote:Letting Lin walk for nothing is dumb. I'm ok if he's not part of the master plan, but then at least match and trade him on Dec 15th. The shine will still be on Linsanity, and there will still be interested teams that will take a chance on him even with the 3rd year balloon payment (The GSW for one, and maybe even Houston especially if they strike out on D12) At least get some picks/prospects out of him if you're not going to keep him.

Agreed.

IrishKnickFan wrote:Maybe the knicks feel that they have a chance to do a S/T next year for paul tahst my only explanation. I mean we know Paul/Melo are tight and melo has said Paul has a good chance to come here so maybe the Knicks are preparing for that?

I think Paul/Chandler were pretty tight as well when they played together in NO

Lin not being worth roughly $30mil in year three of that deal, is basically what it boils down to.

Gymkata wrote:Preface: I like Lin. A lot. I think he's a good guy, a good pro, and Linsanity was the most fun I had with this team since the '99 run. If he's gone, I'll miss him.

But it strikes me that this team is executing a vision. Between Woodson and Grunwald, they're shaping the roster to take on a new persona and a new style. There have been murmurs that these moves--and the resistance to eating the Lin poison pill--might be part of some grander scheme to land Chris Paul, but that seems untenable.

Based on nothing but my own speculation and observation it appears to me that the Knicks are being built for a singular purpose: to beat the Heat.

For the next X amount of years, all paths to the promised land must pass through the Superfriends and looking at the deals I feel like Grunwald is positioning this team to capitalize on the Heat's (few) weaknesses and minimize their strengths.

In another thread nixluva noted how Woodson's system seems to be transforming into a half-court, stingy D, old-school style, sacrificing pick-and-roll and motion offense for a slower, war-of-attrition type of approach. On offense, working through the post (Melo, Kidd, a hopefully-new-and-improved Amare)and staying away from the PnR would take away the Heat's greatest defensive strength, their ferocious trapping and disruption of the passing lanes, which leads to gimmes on the fast break. They're the best team in the NBA at that trap-and-rotate D. But they can be punished on the block and made to pay on the extra pass out of the double team. A penetrating PG is also wasted because they have mastered the art of flopping--er, sound, positioning to take the offensive charge.

On the defensive end, how do the Heat kill you? Dribble-drives and kick-outs to open threes, which they will be far deadlier executing with Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis camping out behind the arc. Meaning, you can't cheat off the shooters to help. Wade and LeBron will get into the paint--they're in the top 10 of all time in my opinion at doing that--so you either cheat to help or bank on your bigs to protect the rim. You cheat, you get torched. So what's the alternative? More punishment, delivered by Tyson, Camby and Crazy Eyes (who I am thrilled is back with us). If Joel Anthony beats you, then so be it.

As such, I just don't see Lin and the skillset he brings as being the best way to execute this strategy. In a vacuum, Lin is young and talented and has great potential, but the Heat have changed the landscape. A team needs to be built to match-up against them.

It might be a good idea. It might be a bad idea. Maybe it will all implode and we'll be back to lamenting the state of our franchise. This is just my take on what's happening at the Garden and if it's close-to-accurate I'm actually encouraged that our basketball brass have been given the freedom to do this. Because as much as Dolan is a little puke, isn't letting Lin walk--the human cash printer that he is--the opposite of Dolan's modus operandi?

Then again the Knicks could match and I just wasted all of Andrew and Martin's bandwidth for nothing!

All you talk about is slow half court offense. Good luck with Camby, Tyson and Kidd running back to defend fast breaks.

CTKnicksfan wrote:Letting Lin walk for nothing is dumb. I'm ok if he's not part of the master plan, but then at least match and trade him on Dec 15th. The shine will still be on Linsanity, and there will still be interested teams that will take a chance on him even with the 3rd year balloon payment (The GSW for one, and maybe even Houston especially if they strike out on D12) At least get some picks/prospects out of him if you're not going to keep him.

Agreed.

To lose a top prospect (on and off the court) like Lin for nothing is absolutely idiotic

FlipPoker wrote:Definitely. That's too much money(+luxury tax) for a guy who has just 25 starts. Also, he apparently didn't want to be here. Look what he secretly did with Houston to renegotiate his offer: NY Post article: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/so...

the Post reported on its back page Saturday the Knicks were furious the Rockets changed the offer sheet for Lin and upgraded it to a $25 million guarantee over three years, according to a source. The Knicks were bitter because they told Lin immediately the club would match the original offer and Lin apparently shared the information with the Rockets. Lin and Houston then plotted to redo it.

Lin secretly flew into Las Vegas without informing the Knicks to renegotiate the contract and sign it.

The Knicks had been set to match Lin’s original offer sheet of four years, $28.9 million that had a $19 million guarantee before the Rockets threw a financial curveball that called for a $15 million third year that would have doomed owner James Dolan’s luxury-tax predicament.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/so...

If that article is true then let him go. He screwed us- he either didn't want to be here and was helping Houston devise a deal that we wouldn't match, or he got greedy and decided to get another $5mil out of us, regardless of how much luxury tax we'd pay. It's the fact that we gave him the courtsy of telling him we'd match, then he went away and held secret re-negotiations.

Even if he wanted to leave, he could have at least been honest about it- if he'd told us about the deal before he signed it, then we could at least have got something back in a S&T. Instead he left it til we'd traded away nearly all our assets and finalized most of our roster moves. Thankfully we just got Felton (I know he's not perfect but can you imagine if we couldn't even have gotten him and Lin left too?).

Ironically, if he did want to play here and was trying to get an extra $5mil, then it's backfired big time- he would have made way more than that by playing in NY and getting endorsements. Good luck on being as marketable in Houston.

Ppppfffff.....

FlipPoker wrote:Definitely. That's too much money(+luxury tax) for a guy who has just 25 starts. Also, he apparently didn't want to be here. Look what he secretly did with Houston to renegotiate his offer: NY Post article: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/so...

Good business on lins part to get the best deal possible

smackeddog wrote:

FlipPoker wrote:Definitely. That's too much money(+luxury tax) for a guy who has just 25 starts. Also, he apparently didn't want to be here. Look what he secretly did with Houston to renegotiate his offer: NY Post article: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/so...

the Post reported on its back page Saturday the Knicks were furious the Rockets changed the offer sheet for Lin and upgraded it to a $25 million guarantee over three years, according to a source. The Knicks were bitter because they told Lin immediately the club would match the original offer and Lin apparently shared the information with the Rockets. Lin and Houston then plotted to redo it.

Lin secretly flew into Las Vegas without informing the Knicks to renegotiate the contract and sign it.

The Knicks had been set to match Lin’s original offer sheet of four years, $28.9 million that had a $19 million guarantee before the Rockets threw a financial curveball that called for a $15 million third year that would have doomed owner James Dolan’s luxury-tax predicament.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/so...

If that article is true then let him go. He screwed us- he either didn't want to be here and was helping Houston devise a deal that we wouldn't match, or he got greedy and decided to get another $5mil out of us, regardless of how much luxury tax we'd pay. It's the fact that we gave him the courtsy of telling him we'd match, then he went away and held secret re-negotiations.

Even if he wanted to leave, he could have at least been honest about it- if he'd told us about the deal before he signed it, then we could at least have got something back in a S&T. Instead he left it til we'd traded away nearly all our assets and finalized most of our roster moves. Thankfully we just got Felton (I know he's not perfect but can you imagine if we couldn't even have gotten him and Lin left too?).

Ironically, if he did want to play here and was trying to get an extra $5mil, then it's backfired big time- he would have made way more than that by playing in NY and getting endorsements. Good luck on being as marketable in Houston.

Ppppfffff.....

That's what he did

the Post reported on its back page Saturday the Knicks were furious the Rockets changed the offer sheet for Lin and upgraded it to a $25 million guarantee over three years, according to a source. The Knicks were bitter because they told Lin immediately the club would match the original offer and Lin apparently shared the information with the Rockets. Lin and Houston then plotted to redo it.

IrishKnickFan wrote:i liked felton when he played here but lets be honest he is not the same felton and MDA i not here anymore. I know lin had a small sample size but he played well under woodson also be fore he went down. I just think it s abig mistake after making a lot of good moves this offseason this would be teh first bad move

To play devils advocate, cant you say the same about Lin who's #'s dipped when MDA was fired?

CTKnicksfan wrote:Letting Lin walk for nothing is dumb. I'm ok if he's not part of the master plan, but then at least match and trade him on Dec 15th. The shine will still be on Linsanity, and there will still be interested teams that will take a chance on him even with the 3rd year balloon payment (The GSW for one, and maybe even Houston especially if they strike out on D12) At least get some picks/prospects out of him if you're not going to keep him.

Do you really think that contract is that tradeable? That 3rd yr of his contract would scare many-a-team off.

Uptown wrote:

CTKnicksfan wrote:Letting Lin walk for nothing is dumb. I'm ok if he's not part of the master plan, but then at least match and trade him on Dec 15th. The shine will still be on Linsanity, and there will still be interested teams that will take a chance on him even with the 3rd year balloon payment (The GSW for one, and maybe even Houston especially if they strike out on D12) At least get some picks/prospects out of him if you're not going to keep him.

Do you really think that contract is that tradeable? That 3rd yr of his contract would scare many-a-team off.

Yep- say we match with the intention of trading him in January. If he is exposed in the months before then, he becomes untradeable. If he is merely average, he is untradeable due to having a max contract in the third year. It's a big gamble- if he's anything other than great, we'd be in a mess. Still, it's tempting to take that gamble.

On first blush I would like a return to a more rugged brand of Knicks basketball, built on offense flowing from the blocks, aggressive rebounding and shotblocking and hard-ass Kurt Thomas fouls. I'm not sure this gets us there, but that's just my personal basketball prejudice (fueled largely from my parks-and-rec league career as a low-post player forced to watch hacks toss up terrible jumper after terrible jumper! )

CTKnicksfan wrote:Letting Lin walk for nothing is dumb. I'm ok if he's not part of the master plan, but then at least match and trade him on Dec 15th.

The counter here is that it is extremely risky. That's two months of exposure and if Linsanity proves to be a fluke or even marginalized, you have no takers, because that back end of the contract is indeed an absolute cap-killer. We write it off because we're taxpayers anyway, but no one is going to pick up that contract if Lin proves to be merely a solid pro (and without the MDA offense as support, there's an excellent chance his numbers will come down to earth). And what if that knee blows out? Remember the MRI revealed a chronic, small meniscus tear in his knee. And if his skillset doesn't fit in the new game-plan, it doesn't fit. So you're essentially going into the new season using Lin as only a showcase for a trade, and not with the best intentions of the club at heart (again, based on the premise that this new direction is what the brass down to the coaching staff agree upon.)

Again, I don't want to be in the position bashing Lin. I'm a big fan.

EDIT: beaten by smackeddog.

VCoug wrote:Replacing him with Felton doesn't make sense since Felton has never shown he can be effective outside of MDA's fast-paced offense.

It's not apples to apples. These are two different skillsets. In the context of this new plan, you don't need a ball-dominant, penetrating point guard. You need a facilitator, a smart passer, a solid defender and someone who can hit an open three. Lin's strength is a quick first step and an ability to get in the paint and be creative. Noble attributes, but wouldn't fit with his approach.

loweyecue wrote:If by vision you mean marginalizing every one not called Melo so he can have the entire spotlight to himslef then I agree.

Don't want to make this another Melo thread, but this is exactly the opposite of what I am conjecturing. Why do you think Amare is being asked to work on his back-to-the-basket game? To be another option in the blocks. Why was Kidd brought in? To mentor Kidd or maybe to use his pedigree and stature to put Melo is the best place to succeed and call him on the times he tries to do much himself. Sorry, but any coach who publicly calls out the face of the franchise to get into better shape is not looking to make huge, landscape-changing roster moves purely to get on his Christmas card list.

loweyecue wrote:[All you talk about is slow half court offense. Good luck with Camby, Tyson and Kidd running back to defend fast breaks.

So a motion-based, pick-and-roll offense against the best team in the league at defending that won't result in fast breaks? The Knicks are thinking--as is my best guess--that a methodical, more traditional offense based on passing out of double teams and pounding the glass will take some gas out of the Heat's Blitzkrieg D. May not be as fun to watch, but that feels like the strategy here.

fishmike wrote:Glad you dont run my team

Thanks for your constructive feedback.