why didnt we just offer a contract first
because as Tommybeer said on twitter, we have his bird rights but we couldn't offer as much money as Lin wanted unless we matched an offer by a previous team.
Also, if we gave an offer and some team came in and gave him a better offer then Lin would feel like the Knicks under-valued him.
Lin met with Woodson and Grunwald a month before teams were allowed to meet with players and odds are they went over what they would do. I believe Lin knew that the KNicks would let him look at offers and then simply match it so he was content knowing that they valued him at the same price as any other team.
it is a smart move but yet one that is biting them now that Houston gave the poison pill contract, yet we have to match.