crzymdups wrote:Uptown wrote:crzymdups wrote:Money quote from the article which I'm sure the pro-Melo crowd will be up in arms about is here: He had the chance for a beautiful partnership with Jeremy Lin, and it all fell apart with the Houston Rockets' offer sheet. Because Anthony never wanted Lin, it was probably forever doomed anyway. Lin's indoctrination to 'Melo would come watching him ignore the coach's wishes and running whatever he wanted to run. Anthony and J.R. Smith resented Lin's attention, his salary, and convinced themselves that Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd can replicate what Lin had going with the Knicks. The rest of the Knicks' roster loved Lin, wanted him, but Anthony and Smith never had the chance to build a chemistry with him.
Wojo is one of the most respected basketball writers in the country, along with Berger and Ho Beck.
As of now, ALL THREE of those writers have written the same thing about Melo.
AND YET, it's still just hearsay and fabrication to the Melo crowd.
So many shades of the Marbury years waiting to happen. I think the team this year can be good. And I hope Jason Kidd can be a leader in the way Billups was for Melo, because that's a job Melo doesn't want. Melo wants to be a scorer and the star.
It is what it is. He looked good in the Olympics - hopefully he continues to remember how to play off the ball.
Hey, I wonder what coach designed the Olympic team's offense?
Dude, the post was pure speculation on Woj's part.
"That's why I think it's funny right now," Lin said. "Some people are talking about, 'Oh, can Melo adjust into the system?' I mean, Melo wants to adjust to the system, and he doesn't want to shoot 30 shots a game. The fact that he vouched for me shows a lot about him."
Why cant we take guys at their words? Melo and Lin are on record as saying they enjoyed playing with each other and were somewhat friendly on and off the court.
So Woj, Berger and Howard Beck are all risking their journalistic integrity and the respect of their peers to make "purely speculative" posts??
These are professionals who have to manage real contacts throughout the league. They work for real organizations, not the NY Post or Daily News.
These dudes aren't making stuff up. Seriously, what possible reason does Wojo have to make stuff up at this point? I love the bending over backwards that the Melo Defense Squad has to do. the guy is being pampered like Marbury was - it's not a good look for any player and it's not how championship organizations act.
Answer me this - would the Spurs have signed Jeremy Lin or given him away for nothing? They have 4 rings in the last 13 years and the Knicks have 0 zero in the last 38 years. One team is a championship and winning and smart organization run by professionals, one ain't.
Enough with the "we let Lin walk away for nothing could have traded him" B.S.!
"This deal was diabolical for the Knicks in another regard, too: Lin would have been almost untradable if the Knicks had signed him.
The rules have long said that such players (restricted free agents whose original teams match another team's offer sheet) can't be traded in the first year of the deal without their consent. In the second year, Lin's contract would have been essentially a two-year, $20 million deal -- a much less attractive contract than three years and $25 million. What's more, the trade partners would have been teams willing to offer a player worth about $5 million, to match the Year 2 salary, but also be able to pay $15 million (plus, in some cases, luxury taxes) the next year. Not a lot of teams fit the bill.
So, what about trading him in the third year to avoid the tax? A couple of problems there, too. For one thing, that season Lin would be paid like an All-Star, which most teams wouldn't want unless he were playing like one, and even then he'd be an impending free agent. On top of that, the Knicks couldn't take a similar salary back without incurring the same tax bill. The only solution would be to trade him for almost nothing to a team well below the cap, like the Bobcats or Kings, but that's tough to pull off.
In a league where the essence of trading is matching salaries, Lin's salary was nearly unmatchable for New York. That won't be as true for the Rockets, however. In another CBA wrinkle, for trade purposes, Lin's salary, on the Rockets or any other team, is averaged over the contract. If the Rockets want to trade Lin, his annual salary counts as $8.4 million at any time, making him that much less of a risk."
