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Jeremy Lin, Houston Rockets Agree to 4-Year, $28.8 Million Deal

By Josh Hill

The Rockets may get Jeremy Lin back using a backloaded contract that would make it difficult for New York to match. (Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-US PRESSWIRE)
The Rockets may get Jeremy Lin back using a backloaded contract that would make it difficult for New York to match. (Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-US PRESSWIRE) /
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There may be another seismic shift surrounding an NBA point guard. Jeremy Lin may be returning to the team that sent him packing last year right before Lin-Sanity took off with full force. The Rockets and Lin have agreed to a $28.8 million contract and the kicker to Knicks in the knickers is that the deal is reportedly backloaded.

The Rockets may get Jeremy Lin back using a backloaded contract that would make it difficult for New York to match. (Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE)
The Rockets may get Jeremy Lin back using a backloaded contract that would make it difficult for New York to match. (Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE) /

New York has said all along that they would match any offer that Lin gets from teams around the NBA but there’s a loop hole the Rockets are using again.

Houston has coveted Bulls center Omer Asik for two years but they were able to get him by offering Asik a $25 million backloaded contact, blocking the cash strapped Bulls from matching. Chicago could match but Asik is set to make $15 million in the hire year of his deal, which would put Chicago into the luxury tax — a place they don’t want to be.

Houston has done this yet again with Lin, backloading his $30 million deal so that if the Knicks match, they’d owe the point guard as much as $10 million in the final two years of the four year deal. Lin would make roughly $5 million in the first year and and extra $200,000 on top of that in the second year making him a $5.2 million cap hit.

In the third year of the deal, Lin will make $9.3 million which is considered a poison pill in the offer as the Knicks may not be able to match.

The fourth year has a team option for another $9.3 million.

The backloaded deal would most likely end up costing the Knicks up to $35 million in luxury taxes. The old format of a dollar on every dollar over the tax is in it’s final year. After this year the taxes go up which is the strategy behind Houston’s backloaded deal.

New York is reportedly very hesitant to match a backloaded offer. Now that source is Chris Broussard who is notorious for throwing things against a wall to see what sticks. But the Knicks only have four players under contract in 2014 and right there have around $61 million committed to them.

That’s assuming that Carmelo Anthony exercises his $22.6 million player option — which he will. Also Iman Shumpert has a $2.6 million club option that year as well.

If the Knicks matched the offer for Lin, he’d be the only player under contract at the moment past 2014. They’d also have about $66 million committed to just five players in the second year of Lin’s deal.

The Knicks will have until July 14th to match the offer. Houston, should Lin not have his deal matched by the Knicks, would have two big free agent signings in addition to their three first round draft picks in Jeremy Lamb, Royce White and Terrence Ross.

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