Step One: Hide From The Guy Delivering The Rockets' Jeremy Lin Offer Sheet
The NBA has a rule that when a restricted free agent (like Jeremy Lin) receives a contract offer from a new team, his current team has three days to match it. That timer begins the moment the offer sheet reaches the current team's GM. So to buy his team more time, Knicks GM Glen Grunwald spent a lot of this weekend trying to dodge the guy delivering Houston's offer to Jeremy Lin. And thanks to @Jonathan_Feigen of the Houston Chronicle, fans were able to stay on top of Grunwald's Abbot and Costello-esque quest to hide. It was a classy look, for a classy Knickerbocker organization.
Step Two: Trade For Raymond Felton
In 2010, Raymond Felton spent a little over half a season in New York. In his brief time with the Knicks (54 games), the point guard set career highs in points, assists, and steals per game. Since then he's been most famous for getting fat and not playing as well as he did when he played in New York. On Saturday evening, a trade was completed that brought Felton back to Madison Square Garden (along with Kurt Thomas) for Jared Jeffies and Dan Gadzuric. This was a surprising move since the Knicks had already signed Jason Kidd's rotting corpsethis off-season and had been consistently telling the media that they planned on matching Jeremy Lin's offer sheet from Houston. Which means...
Step Three: Decide Against Matching Jeremy Lin's Offer Sheet From Houston
When the Rockets first offered Jeremy Lin the three-year $25 million offer sheet (since upped to closer to $30 million), it was all but a certainty the Knicks would match it. In fact sources told ESPN that the team would match any Lin offer "up to one billion dollars." Now, aside from the inanity of that statement (obviously, the salary cap would prohibit such a deal) and the overwhelming coolness of that number (thanks Justin Timberlake), the point was clear: Jeremy Lin is too valuable for the Knicks to let him go. Though I suppose it's also possible that the quote was truncated and that the source had actually said, "They will match any offer on Lin up to one billion dollars, unless, Raymond Felton becomes available... Because with Baron Davis coming off the books, we need at least one fat point guard."
Of course, the Knicks could still match and just carry all three point guards (they have until Tuesday to do so). After all, Grunwald probably wouldn't have avoided receiving the offer sheet if he knew there was no way the Knicks would match, but sources (man this "sources" guys is all over the place this off-season) are now saying that the team plans to let Lin go. Cue half of the Knicks fan-base writing off Lin as a fluke, and the other half setting themselves on fire, claiming they're losing the next Steve Nash. But regardless of which school of Lin thought you subscribe to, this much is certain: Jeremy Lin has far more potential for greatness than Raymond Felton, and the Knicks are letting him walk away because his contract would be about $14 million too rich (Lin would make $2 million more than Felton each of the first two years of the deal and $10 million more in the third). So much for "up to one billion dollars."
Step Four: Have Your Superstar Talk Shit About The Situation
When asked about the Jeremy Lin contract, Carmelo Anthony said, "It's not up to me. It's up to the organization to say that they want to match that ridiculous contract." Snap. Burn. Zing. Whatever else kids say when they have a good one-liner. But it's important to remember that Melo may not be the best judge of what's ridiculous. For instance, for most of Melo's career he's thought that playing defense was ridiculous. And since it hangs in his home, he apparently doesn't think this painting is ridiculous:
So take what Melo says with a grain of salt.
Step Five: Have Your New, Veteran Point Guard Get Busted For A DWI
While all of the Felton-Lin-Melo nonsense was happening this weekend, Jason Kidd was trying to relax and enjoy the Hamptons. So that's what he did. And like many Americans, relaxing meant drinking. And since he's an idiot, Kidd decided to get behind the wheel of his Escalade. He drove it into a telephone pole. Kidd was arrested and faces a misdemeanor DWI charge. No one was injured in the accident, except for the reputation of a once great basketball franchise. And honestly it was pretty badly beaten up by the time Kidd was in police custody.