Two days after agreeing to a buyout with the Hawks, Jeremy Lin has officially signed with the Raptors, the team announced on Twitter. Toronto has been the expected destination for the 30-year-old guard once he cleared waivers.
Lin will make approximately $697K for the rest of the season, which matches the amount he gave back to the Hawks in his buyout, and will carry a $487K cap hit, posts Bobby Marks on ESPN Now. The Raptors’ moves this month have saved them $13.5MM in luxury taxes and they have trimmed their projected tax bill to $21.2MM.
Lin played in 51 games for Atlanta, nearly all as a reserve, and posted a 10.7/2.3/3.5 line in 19.7 minutes per night. He also proved that he can stay healthy after missing significant time with injuries in each of the past two seasons.
Although he is far removed from his “Lin-sanity” days in New York, Lin still has the ability to help a contender. He arrives at a good time for the Raptors, who will be without reserve guard Fred VanVleet for around five weeks after he undergoes thumb surgery.
Toronto coach Nick Nurse had planned to use Lin as a combo guard, but he will inherit the role of backup point guard until VanVleet returns, tweets Ryan Wolstat of The Toronto Sun. Lin will make his Raptors debut tonight.
“He’s a good player,” Nurse said of Lin. “We want to get good players on the floor.”
Any time I hear news about Jeremy Lin it takes me back to 2012 when Linsanity was taking over. That was a really fun period. I’ll never forget him going on a tear and even beating Kobe
He hit some sick game winners during that run. Melo wasn’t having it though and he went to HOU. He is still a very good pg his per-36 is like 20ppg,7apg,4rpg. Very good signing
It’s really one of the craziest moments I can remember in basketball. Lin was unstoppable and Melo was so damn salty. Having said that surprised Lin settled for the small salary he got but playing for a contender was more important
Looking forward to a Chinese themed night soon. Huge Chinese population in TO. When he beat us when he was with the Knicks, I think there were more cheering for him than for the Raptors. Nice to have him on our team.
They’re talking about that game 7 years right now on TSN.
So a 5% giveback. What of the 10% kicker?
Toronto made out.
Great use of the buyout market. Losing FVV with Wright gone would have been more than a minor problem. Lowry can’t play more minutes than he is without potential longer term consequences.