Five reasons James Dolan is an idiot.
1.) The "Poison Pill" - WHO GIVES A SHIT. The first two years the contract pays reasonably, the final years it pays an absurd amount...except that final year would be an expiring contract anyway. We have seen time and time again in this league, exorbitant expiring contracts can be useful trading pieces. Either Lin lives up to the hype and the deal works out, or you pay him reasonably for two years and then make something happen with an expiring. Plus if he gets injured, the new CBA has provisions for restructuring. AND Nate Silver was reporting that word of Knicks not re-signing Lin caused MSG stock to drop some $50 million dollars...how does letting a guy walk because you're terrified of paying him 40 million make sense if just by leaving you're losing out on 50? It is VERY telling that the team with most firsthand experience with a Chinese Star was the one most willing to spend on Lin--the Rockets know better than anyone how international dollars can help a team's bottom line. How the fuck does an owner willing to overpay the likes of Curry and Marbury for years and years, suddenly get cold feet at the thought of paying a surefire moneymaker?
2.) The Nets are moving to New York this year. They will be literally like 25 minutes away, and their team is likely going to be as good or better than the Knicks. So of course Dolan lets go of the one Knicks player the entire city loves who's guaranteed to attract attention and sell tickets. Brilliant.
3.) Felton is fat, and assuming his one good 54 game stretch is somehow his "norm" is idiotic. Kidd is an old man. The odds are very good the Knicks now have one of the worst pg rotations in the East.
4.) Amar'e is untradable and the Knicks aren't moving Melo, so it's not like they have the flexibility to make room for some other marquee free agent in the near future. Like it or not, this is pretty much their team for the next few years. Their choice was "do we want this team with Lin running the show, or Felton" and they opted for Felton
5.) Dolan supposedly was acting out of spite because he felt Lin had screwed the Knicks and wasn't properly "grateful." This makes no sense. Jeremy Lin has earned like a million dollars total in salary, and neither he nor anyone else has any idea what will happen in the future. It would be stupid for him NOT to try to make as much as he can, and if Dolan was expecting a Harvard Econ major to be stupid about money he was sorely mistaken. And Lin didn't "owe" the Knicks anything--the only reason he got any playing time at all was because of a fluke series of injuries. For Dolan to act like the very act of signing Lin to be a practice player and then putting him in when other players got injured, somehow entitled him to extraordinary loyalty and an expectation that Lin wouldn't go for the best deal is...is DUMB.
JAMES DOLAN IS STUPID.