No surety of Jeremy Lin re-signing with the New York Knicks - NBA News
Jeremy Lin is a restricted free agent come this summer, and has the eyes of many team management officials set on him.
It is almost taken for granted that Lin will re-sign with the New York Knicks since he had an amazing season with them and a rule in the CBA, known as the Gilbert Arenas rule, allows the Knicks to match any offer
he gets from the other clubs.
However, his agent is not so sure that he will resign with the Knicks.
"I don't expect that. We're not anticipating that's going to happen. We don't have assurances of anything. I know history shows most restricted free agents go back to their team, but I'm not going to assume anything.
We're waiting to see what happens” said Lin’s agent Roger Montgomery to the New York Post.
The Knicks coach Mike Woodson said earlier in the season that Lin would “absolutely” be back. However, Lin spoke to reporters a day after the Knicks were knocked out of the playoffs by the Miami Heat and said:
“There's always going to be uncertainty until the final contract is signed, so definitely nothing is set in stone. Nothing's set in stone until it's really written."
Lin’s signing would not be as simple as it seems, as there is an arbitration hearing between the league and the union regarding the Bird exceptions to the salary cap of waived players. The rule allows the team
to exceed the salary cap to resign their own player. The union says that the player’s bird rights should be transferred with him when he is waived to another team. The league says that they are not transferred.
This issue is critical in the signing of Jeremy Lin as he was brought to New York after being waived from the Golden State Warriors. If the union wins, the Knicks can resign Jeremy Lin without having to use up
their $5 million mid level exception, which they could use to buy another free agent. If the league wins the arbitration, the Knicks will have to use their mid level exception on Jeremy Lin.
Lin was the fairy tale story of the NBA for the 2011-2012 season. He was picked up by the Knicks as a backup point guard and saw very little playing time until early February this season, when former Knicks
coach Mike D’Antoni started Lin as he was playing with an injury depleted roster.
Lin took the opportunity to come big on the night, and after that led the Knicks to six straight wins, helping them climb back into playoff contention. The sudden explosion of Lin also brought in a great deal
of marketing revenue and advertisement deals for the New York Knicks. Hence, they are quite interested in signing Lin to their roster.
Lin was sideline for the rest of the season and the early parts of the playoffs when he underwent a surgery on April 2nd to repair a tear in the meniscus of his left knee. He tried to make a comeback
in the 1st round playoff series against the Miami Heat but could not manage to do so.
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