Knicks Coach Mike Woodson seemed bent on quashing talk of Jeremy Lin’s possible defection to Toronto, Dallas, Portland or several other teams with some aggressive wooing of Lin.
Woodson, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler met with Lin in Los Angeles for two days last week for some wining and dining and plain “bonding”, according to the New York Post. A video clip by TMZ showed Anthony, Woodson and Lin emerging from Mastro’s Steak House in Beverly Hills.
“Absolutely he’s going to be back,” Woodson told the Post. “We like what he brings to the table. He’s our starting point guard. He’s a young point guard who’s still learning, and he’s going to be better. That’s what happens to good, young players. If they work at their craft, they’ll be much better for it. Absolutely, he wants to be here.”
Lin is among several dozen NBA players who become free agents as of Sunday. But as a third-year player, Lin will only be a restricted free agent. That means other teams can’t offer him more than the NBA average salary (currently around $5 mil. a year) and the Knicks have the right to match any offer Lin gets in order to keep him on the team.
One of the obstacles to Lin’s return has been removed by an arbitration decision that restored Lin’s Early Bird rights. That means the Knicks don’t have to use up their mid-level exception to match the other teams’ offers to Lin, freeing the team to be more aggressive in trying to keep him.
The more serious doubt as to Lin’s return had been whether Woodson and the Knicks would continue to make Lin the team’s primary ball distributor as he had been during his phenomenal Linsanity run in February when he rose from obscure bench player to a global sensation practically overnight. The return of Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks’ most highly paid player, later in the month set up a conflict that led to the departure of former coach Mike D’Antoni and raised questions as to whether Lin could shine as brightly under Woodson.
“(Lin is) a big part of what we’re doing,” Woodson said, suggesting that he believes some way can be found to let the two stars coexist in some kind of effective binary system. “All those guys are big pieces of the puzzle as far as moving forward with the ballclub. To be able to go out and sit with them, gives them a chance to bond.”
