BRIGGS wrote:We need younger high quality PF and PG back ups who are capable of also giving big minutes.

The problem is, with this new cba, our hands are really going to be tied, and it's going to get worse each year. Essentially we're stuck in a cycle, whereby each year we'll take a few gambles on low key players with the vet minimum- those players will either give us nothing, or will exceed expectations, at which point we'll no longer be able to afford to re-sign them.

This offseason, we're probably going to lose Novak, JR Smith, and JJ. Maybe even BD (though he may decide to give it another shot). Our MLE will be taken up by Lin, and our LLE by Fields. I just don't see how we can replace those players with just the vet minimum, and no draft pick, and then even if we did, and got a PF and PG, we'd just end up losing them the following offseason.

Really our only hope is those 2 second round players draft rights we aquired from Dallas (I think- at the start of the season), prove to be contributors.

BRIGGS- do you know anything about Giorgos Printezis and Ahmad Nivins? Do they have any potential or are they just scrubs?

y2zipper wrote:http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7583558/nba-how-new-york-knicks-keep-jeremy-lin

Lin doesn't qualify for full Bird Rights but is a restricted free agent under the "Gilbert Arenas" provision in the rulebook. In short, here's what it means...

New York can only offer Lin 120% of his current salary without cap restrictions because they have one year Bird Rights. This likely isn't enough to keep Lin, meaning that Jeremy Lin will become a restricted free agent.

Restricted free agency means that New York will have an opportunity to match any offer made to Jeremy Lin. The Gilbert Arenas provision says that a team cannot offer a player with less than 3 years of experience a contract that exceeds what the Knicks could possibly match under the cap. Because the Knicks only have the mid-level exception, that's the maximum a team can offer under league rules. Basically, team X offers Lin the full MLE, and New York would have to match it and use the MLE to keep him.

Basically, Lin would have to take the One year Bird Rights contract to not interfere with the MLE. It's a possibility because Lin gets Full Bird Rights if he plays another year with the Knicks and could then get any contract he wants.

I hope that's the case, now we need insurance for him ironically, let alone BD.