Knicks won't let Jeremy Lin leave

All the clues are starting to point to one conclusion: Soon-to-be free agent Jeremy Lin will be a New York Knick next season.

Truthfully, that news is less surprising than Isiah Thomas' utterly predictable firing at FIU. Not only did Lin register 14.6 points, 6.1 assists and 1.6 steals per game before tearing the meniscus in his left knee, but the collective bargaining agreement stacked the chips in the Knicks' favor as well.

The Knicks don't hold Lin's Bird rights and will be hopelessly over the cap next season. However, thanks to the Gilbert Arenas provision, other teams can't offer him more than the mid-level exception because he's played less than three seasons. And since he's a restricted free agent, the Knicks can match any offer he receives even if they have to use their own MLE on Lin (an inevitability, really).

In other words, it was never a question of the Knicks CAN keep Lin. Rather, it was question of if they wanted to bring him back at the expense of their own MLE. Remember, Steve Nash is a free agent next season, so the team could theoretically offer that to the veteran in hopes of challenging for a title in 2012-2013.

The right choice is to use the MLE on Lin of course, and that appears to be what the Knicks are doing.

"They won't let him leave," a source told ESPN.com's Marc Stein about Lin.

As Stein pointed out, there is too much marketing dollars at stake for both the Knicks and Lin. He needs to be in the city to reach as many people as possible and the Knicks have brought in several Chinese sponsors that would be disappointed if they failed to re-sign the child of Taiwanese immigrants.

Another motivating factor that Stein didn't mention was the Nets' move to Brooklyn. CEO Nets Basketball Brett Yormark has already attracted major sponsors like Barclays to his side of the fence, and the Knicks will obviously look to maintain their status as advertisers' preferred team.

From: http://www.nj.com/knicks/index.ssf/2012/04/report_knicks_wont_let_jeremy.html

所有跟帖： 

• Nash 太老了。。。 -baydad- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/07/2012 postreply 17:44:26

• 不让走，就拿大合同来换。 -hopeca- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/07/2012 postreply 17:44:31