NBA: Rockets boost offer to Jeremy Lin; Knicks still expected to match

The Houston Rockets have upped the ante in their pursuit of point guard Jeremy Lin, signing him to a three-year, fully guaranteed $25.1 million offer sheet that the New York Knicks will now have three days to match, multiple sources reported. Lin is a restricted free agent for the Knicks, which means that New York will have up to three days to match the Rockets' offer. Prior to the lifting of the NBA's moratorium on new deals, Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Rockets had offered Lin a back-loaded three-year deal with a team option for a fourth season, worth a total of $30 million. Lin would have been paid $5 million in the first year, $5.2 million in the second, and $9.3 million in the third and fourth seasons. By structuring the contract in this way, the Knicks would have been forced well into the luxury tax bracket of the NBA's salary cap, forcing them to pay for each dollar above the tax line.

Lin will get $5M in year one, $5.225M in year two and $14.898M in year three. Rockets hoped that will discourage NY, but Knicks will match. — David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) July 13, 2012

Lin offer sheet did indeed change from previously reported four-year, $28M offer. Rockets really backloaded year three. — David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) July 13, 2012

Rockets' need for a pg desperate; felt they had to change previous offer to make their best run at Lin. — David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) July 13, 2012

Word in exec circles is circulating already that Knicks, especially given terms of J-Lin's new deal, will take full three days to match — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 13, 2012

Combined salaries of Melo, Amar'e, Chandler & Lin in 2014-15: $77.3 million. — John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) July 13, 2012

In the new deal, the fourth year team option has been removed, but Lin will now be paid a whopping $14.898 million in the now third and final year of the contract. According to NBA.com's John Schuhmann, that means the combined salaries of the Knicks' top-four players in the 2014-15 season alone would total $77.3 million, a staggering amount comparable only to the current set-up of the Brooklyn Nets. The Rockets are desperate for a point guard, after incumbents Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowry left the team or were dealt away during the off-season. It is still expected however that the Knicks, regardless of luxury tax implications, will keep Lin, who boosted the team's profile with a stunning run of games that resulted in the "Linsanity" phenomenon, as the previously unheralded Taiwanese-American guard led the Knicks to a string of stirring victories before injuries forced him to shut it down for the remainder of the 2011-12 season. - AMD, GMA News