Jeremy Lin was denying rumors of a possible trade the night before the Nets shipped him to Atlanta, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Fans of the veteran guard have been bombarding Brooklyn GM Sean Marks with message of disapproval, but Lewis states that the trade shouldn’t be considered a surprise. Lin, who is about to turn 30 and is coming off a major injury, doesn’t fit the Nets’ rebuilding timeline. Still, he was blindsided by the deal with the Hawks.
“These things can happen pretty quickly,” Marks explained. “Summer league, Vegas, maybe it’s a little like the winter meetings for baseball where everybody is there and it gives everybody an opportunity to continue to talk and hash some things out.”
Lin spent two seasons in Brooklyn, but missed 127 of 164 games with hamstring and knee injuries. He has a $12.5MM expiring contract, which gives him one season in Atlanta to try to revive his career before becoming a free agent next summer.
There’s more tonight from the Atlantic Division:
- The Nets considered making an offer to free agent Jabari Parker before he signed with the Bulls, Lewis adds in the same story. They decided against it because of the price tag and a recent comment Parker made in a radio interview that “They don’t pay players to play defense.” Brooklyn opted for a pair of trades with the Nuggets and Suns that brought in Kenneth Faried and Jared Dudley.
- Former Celtic Isaiah Thomas reached out to former Raptor DeMar DeRozan on social media after Toronto’s deal to acquire Kawhi Leonard was announced, relays Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. “Learn from my story,” Thomas wrote on Twitter. “Loyalty is just a word.” Their experiences are similar as both were very popular and successful with their teams, but were dealt away when better players became available.
- The Celtics opened a roster spot today by waiving Abdel Nader, but they may take their time in filling it, Washburn notes in the same piece. Restricted free agent Jabari Bird, the leading scorer for Boston’s summer league entry, would like to take it, but the Celtics prefer to keep him on a two-way contract. The team hasn’t used its $5.3MM mid-level exception and will likely wait to see if a bigger-name free agent becomes interested.
- Celtics forward Gordon Hayward showed fans the progress he has made with his fractured ankle in a workout video he posted today on his Instagram account.
Didn’t Parker make the radio comments after he signed with the Bulls? Not sure how that played into the Nets decision not to make an offer.
Lol
I can understand someone like DeRozan who was supposed to be the franchise guy being mad that he got traded and feeling betrayed. But Jeremy Lin was overpaid and injury prone in the first place. Get over yourself, the NBA is a business first.
Yup. And IT got traded only because he refused to sign a reasonable contract extension.
IT was traded because you would be a fool not to get Kyrie if you can. It was not planned but Ainge. It happen because Kyrie wanted out.
I think Hayward showed us the progress he made when we learned his wife was far enough along for the gender reveal video…
Jabari is right, the big money is for guys that can score for fun is a talent. Any one can defend is about attitude not talent… By the way is not the first to say that, he isn’t a star like others who said that, so maybe he shouldn’t have, though he is absolutely right.
Now that practically every team is capped out, tapped out and the free agent list has shrunk some, you would think the Celtics, of all teams, would be 99% done setting their lineup, but now here come the Anthony Davis rumors again !
So just to play along, here’s a trade proposal:
Davis for Theis, Morris, Smart, Yabusele, Celts own 2019 1st rd pick and 2019 Grizzlies pick. Imagine that new lineup.
The Celts would save over $4mm in salary, letting them fill a few holes left after the trade (hopefully one with Bird). And they would still have the Sacramento pick.
Now that the raptors made this move for Kawhi.
Is this trade possible or I just lost my mind.
Toronto – A. Davis
Sacramento – S. Ibaka
Pelicans – Z. Randolph, N. Powell, K. Koufos.
and picks mix around there from toronto.
is this a all in senario for toronto and to sell in to Kawhi.
not an expert. but just throwing this in.
Looks like the math might work, but you’ve got to be a Toronto fan !
The Raptors make out like a bastard and I think the Pelicans’ ass would be sore if they went for that trade. Sacramento might be fine with it.
It’s not easy figuring out a fair trade when you’re bias toward one of the teams. I do it all the time.