Chris Smith believes his brother J.R. Smith will return to the New York Knicks next season – NBA News
Chris Smith, the younger brother of New York Knicks guard J.R. Smith, believes that the forward will return to the Big Apple next season.
Smith is a free agent this summer and can choose which team he wants to play for. He opted out of his $2.4 million contract with the Knicks on June 26th.
"He loves New York. He's looking for a great situation, and whatever suits him right, that's what he'll do. The main thing is him being happy; that's all that really matters. But if I had to put a guess on it, he'll be back in
New York." Chris told ESPN New York on Monday night while speaking from Los Angeles by phone.
Knicks General Manager Glen Grunwald said on Thursday night that his top priority was to re-sign Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak, J.R Smith and Landry Fields. All four are free agents and the Knicks are looking to hire their services once
again.
“We want to keep both (Lin and Novak) and keep Landry and J.R. (Smith).They're all valuable players and we're going to try to keep all four of them. We have some (recruiting) plans. We've been in contact with our own free agents
and they've expressed their desire to come back. They know we love them and want them. We'll do the negotiating and hopefully it all works out,” said Grunwald.
Smith can re-sign with the Knicks for 120% of his previous year’s salary using a non Bird exception. That would be around $2.8 million per year. Or better yet, the Knicks could offer him their mid level exception of $3.09 million,
although they would want to keep it for a veteran point guard and Steve Nash is at the top of the list for them.
Chris Smith has been training along with brother J.R Smith, Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers and Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks at the UCLA campus off late. He went undrafted this year but will be playing with the Knicks summer
league team in Las Vegas.
The Knicks were the only team that worked Smith out during the pre draft practice sessions and if the summer league stint does not work out for him, he will explore opportunities outside of the United States.
China could be one option, where his brother J.R. Smith played from 2011 to February 2012 before being signed by the Knicks.
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