Steve Novak agrees to re-sign with the New York Knicks for a four year contract – NBA News
Steve Novak has decided to re-sign with the New York Knicks for a four year contract worth $15 million, as confirmed by his agent Mark Bartelstein.
Novak had a tremendous last season with the Knicks where he led the NBA in 3 point percentage. He was paid $992,680 in salary last year so the new contract is a big promotion for him and shows the improvement he has made to his
game over the past one season.
Novak was always interested in returning to the Knicks for the next few seasons. Ever since the season finished for the Knicks with a first round playoff defeat at the hands of the Miami Heat, Novak had said that he would love
to return to the team. There was a issue of Bird rights, but even it didn't come in the way of his wish being fulfilled.
“As I've said a million times, I would just love to be back. There's no question that coming back would be awesome,” Novak had said while speaking to ESPN New York on July 1st.
The Knicks have been quite aggressive in free agency this year, making crucial deals to improve their roster. They added veteran point guard Jason Kidd and veteran center Marcus Camby to the team, and have now retained Novak.
They will now focus their energies to somehow retain point guard Jeremy Lin who is a restricted free agent but has a four year back loaded contract offer by the Houston Rockets. The Knicks, already having little salary cap space,
will be looking to somehow retain Lin. If they manage to do so, they will have a strong back court presence next season.
Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks star forward, has expressed satisfaction over the way the Knicks have handled this free agency. He was reportedly in favour of recruiting Camby, whom he played with while he was with the Denver Nuggets.
The Knicks ability to sign him showed their commitment towards improving the team to make them contenders for the NBA crown.
The Knicks were eyeing veteran point guard Steve Nash early on in free agency and were the front runners to sign him. However, Nash decided to move to the Los Angeles Lakers leaving New York in a fix. In the situation, the Knicks
did a good job of finding the next best replacement in Jason Kidd, especially their ability in convincing Kidd to leave Dallas, where he had won an NBA championship.
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