Saturday, July 14, 2012

New York Knicks Replace Jeremy Lin by Signing Raymond Felton?

Puzzling news reported today that the New York Knicks have signed Raymond Felton. Reports from ESPN say the Knicks will complete a sign and trade deal with the Portland Trail Blazers. The deal will bring point guard Raymond Felton and Kurt Thomas to New York in exchange for Dan Gadzuric and Jard Jeffreies.

The deal now gives the New York Knicks two former starting point guards on their roster in Felton and Jason Kidd. Where does Jeremy Lin fit into their plans. Well, with an offer sheet from the Houston Rockets set to expire Tuesday night, pershaps Jeremy Lin is no longer in the New York Knicks future plans.

Something does not sit right here. After all, the New York Knicks just named Jeremy Lin...

their starting point guard for the 2012-2013 season. How can Jeremy Lin start if he's not on the team? Were the Knicks just making up their intent on re-signing Jeremy Lin this entire time? Was the Houston Rockets back loaded offer too much for the New York Knicks to commit to?

The Knicks do get the former fifth overall pick in Raymond Felton. Felton played for the New York Knicks during the 2010-2011 season. During that season, Felton split time betweent the Knicks (54 games) and Denver Nuggets (21 games). While with the Knicks, Felton had career highs in points per game (17.1), minutes per game (38.4), free throw percentage (.867), assists per game (9.0), and steals per game (1.8). If you're Raymond Felton, you certainly have got to like this deal. The former NCAA National Champion posted 11.4 points and 6.5 assists per game last season with the Portland Trail Blazers.

The likelihood of the New York Knicks signing Jeremy Lin just went from 100% to 50% on this one move. The team has been bringing in veteran players (Jason Kidd) and former players (Raymond Felton, Marcus Camby) to immediately compete for a NBA Championship. With Lin's lack of NBA experience, perhaps this is their nice way of letting him go to a team (Houston) who needs his services and will allow him the starting point guard role. Houston wins big if this is the case as they can gain back fans they had during their Yao Ming days. The team is also in hot pursuit of key free agent target Dwight Howard.

Tuesday night will finally end the Jeremy Lin signing drama. Stay tuned to see where he is headed.
 

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