Report: Lin signs offer sheet with Rockets

[Fafnir]

Dump Amare, keep Lin.

Yeah agreed, but I don't see them being able to do that.

I thought Joe Johnson's contract was untradable.

He was still playing at an all-star level though. They might be able to trade him for expiring deals that end earlier but I have my doubts.

[Fafnir]

I'll reiterate a question I asked before that I think needs to be answered for clarity -

Did Lin or his agent go back to the Knicks and ask them to match the 3 year 25 million dollar offer but even out the money throughout the years.

If they didn't, it suggests to me that Lin didn't want to stay in New York all that much.

If they did, it suggests that this wasn't as much of a 'luxury tax' issue as it was a personnel decision.

They couldn't smooth it out, his first year salary is fixed at 5 million at the most under the gilbert arenas rule they can use to sign or match his offer.

The best they could do is add a fourth year, the Knicks probably could have already signed him if they offered 4 years 24 million aggressively in the FA period.

[saltlover]

According to what was just said on the Herd,


Lin contract would cost the Knick around 50 million in the third season.  



I don't know how true those numbers are, but WOW.

No, it won't. It's $15m on paper. And why single out Lin's salary? What about bloated salaries of Amare $24m and Carmelo $24m.

If you're a crappy accountant, or a politician, then sure, you can pretend that all of Lin's salary and none of Melo's or A'mare's count against the luxury tax, which will be expensive in year three.  But otherwise you're just twisting the facts.

If the Knicks were to have a $90 million payroll in year 3 of Lin, then 1/6 of their luxury tax bill could be assessed to his contract, but over 1/4 should be assessed to each of Anthony's and Stoudemire's deals.  That could add on $7-10 to the cost of Lin's deal, which isn't insignificant.  But he won't cost $50 mil.

You're talking about accounting allocations.

What we're talking about is marginal cost. The marginal cost of adding his $15 million dollar deal in year 3 is the cost that you must consider.

I mean, sure, it's marginal cost, in that the other two huge contracts came first.  But if anyone in the Knicks was thinking at all (which, I grant, is questionable), then they knew that those contracts would necessitate them paying the luxury tax in the future.  Accordingly, you should spread the luxury tax costs across the entire payroll.