Lin
Other teams know precisely what the Knicks can offer Lin in the absence of an offer from another team. It follows that any team desiring Lin will offer him a better contract, i.e., a backloaded contract that in two years time will put the Knicks in signifiicant luxury tax mode. If Fields can get a three year backloaded contract worth almost $20M, Lin is likely to be offered a better contract. How much better - who knows? I would think $40M is too much, but I could never have imagined almost $20M for Fields, considering, particularly, that unrestricted free agents such as Mayo and Beasley would likely take considerably less.
Dolan has been willing to pay luxury taxes in the past. To what extent will another team risk paying Lin an unwarranted premium just to cause luxury tax problems for the Knicks? No team should do that because it will not help that team and it would risk having to pay Lin more than he is believed to be worth if the offer is not matched.
It would seem to me that the Rockets, or any other team, will not offer Lin more than they believe he is worth. As a player, Lin had an excellent short term run in the D'Antoni system, but that system made the likes of Duhon and Fats Felton look good. Lin show some promise, but a guaranteed $40M looks like too much. As far as marketing type income that will follow Lin is concerned, it is unclear to me how much of it goes to the team rather than Lin personally.
It is unlikely, to say the least, that the Knicks will match the offer to Fields and I am not particularly heartbroken if it scuttles our efforts to get Nash. Berman suggests it would cost us Shumpert to get Nash and says it as if it might be part of discussions with Phoenix. Berman is an idiot whose comments often have no actual support. If we were to give up Shumpert for the sake of overpaying the 38 year old Nash with a three year contract, I will give up on the Knicks. I would rather have Kidd or Prigioni.
Although the Toronto offer to Fields appears to have been designed to to keep us out of the Nash market, I would watch out for Toronto in the Lin market. Toronto has a huge Asian community. There is chemistry, friendship and apparent devout Christianity between Lin and Fields. Perhaps Toronto's overpriced offer to Fields had alternative objectives.