Atlanta Hawks: Making sense of the Jeremy Lin trade
The Atlanta Hawks are taking on a big expiring contract in Jeremy Lin, but how will this impact the rest of the Hawks’ backcourt?
It’s no secret that the Brooklyn Nets are taking on and pushing out contracts to put themselves in position to land two big free agents next year. The Atlanta Hawks are just the latest team to help them do so by trading for guard Jeremy Lin.
Thanks to a late-night Woj-bomb, news of the trade between the Hawks and Nets was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. The Nets had agreed to a trade with the Hawks (Brooklyn’s second trade of the evening), sending Lin packing and exchanging rights to future draft picks, some of which are more than five years down the road.
This trade isn’t without its risks though. Jeremy Lin had a 19.9 Player Efficiency Rating (PER) over 35 games with the Knicks in 2011-12, but had a hard time latching on anywhere during his four seasons with the Rockets, Lakers and Hornets, averaging just a 14.6 PER — just below average.
Lin then headed to the Brooklyn Nets before the 2016-17 season but only played in 37 games over two seasons due to injury; last season was cut short early when he ruptured his patellar tendon on opening night.
With the trade for Lin, the Hawks now have a logjam of four point guards if you include Jaylen Adams (though he is a likely G League candidate at this point). Lin carries a pretty big contract for being a second backup point guard.
Taking in the $12.5M expiring contract of Jeremy Lin now has the Hawks with $8.9M in room and 13 guaranteed contracts. Lin has a 10% trade bonus valued at $1.25M that Brooklyn would be responsible for if the guard does not waive it. The cap hit would... https://t.co/CHri7fxyaR
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) July 13, 2018
By trading for Lin, the Hawks lose most of the cap flexibility that many teams were envious of coming into the offseason. Plus, Schroder and Lin are essentially two carbon copies of the same player.
| Rk | Player | G | FG% | 3P% | eFG% | FT% | TRB | AST | STL | TOV | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeremy Lin | 406 | .433 | .350 | .484 | .805 | 2.9 | 4.5 | 1.2 | 2.4 | 12.0 |
| 2 | Dennis Schroder | 352 | .434 | .320 | .473 | .827 | 2.5 | 4.8 | 0.8 | 2.4 | 12.9 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 7/13/2018.
As you see above, the field goal shooting percentages for both Lin and Schroder are nearly identical, but Lin, over his career, has been a better 3-point shooter. Their points, rebounds and assists per game are nearly identical as well.
So what do the Hawks truly gain here? Despite Lin taking up $12.5 million of the Hawks’ salary cap, he is much cheaper than Schroder’s contract of $15.5 million for not just next season, but for the two seasons after that as well. Speculation has accelerated even more that Schroder is definitely on his way out as a result of this deal.
Meanwhile, told the Hawks plan to keep @JLin7, acquired from BKN tonight (@wojespn first). With @TheTraeYoung in the mix as well, you’d have to think Atlanta is in range to deal incumbent point @DennisMike93, around whom trade rumors have been flying for weeks.
— David Aldridge (@davidaldridgedc) July 13, 2018
The Hawks didn’t need extra backcourt depth before Lin was traded. Their depth chart at just the shooting guard position already had Kent Bazemore, Tyler Dorsey, Antonius Cleveland and Jaylen Morris before the draft, and the team then added Kevin Huerter at that point too.
So with the trade for Lin, the writing on the wall is just becoming clearer for the Hawks and Dennis Schroder. He has expressed his desire to get out of Atlanta multiple times and the Hawks are preparing to move on with him. Trae Young is definitely the future at the point and a one-year gamble on Lin will be worth it if they can find a taker for Schroder.
If a Schroder trade eventually happens and the Lin experiment doesn’t work, Lin’s contract comes off the books next year, potentially giving the Hawks even more salary cap room than they had this year.
Next: 2018 NBA free agency tracker: Grades for every deal so far
If the Lin experiment does work and he can recapture even a little of the Lin-sanity magic with the Knicks, Atlanta and the NBA will be better off for it. Even if the Hawks can’t we enough games to stay out of the basement of the Atlantic Division, Lin and Young on the court at the same time could provide NBA fans with one of the most exciting guard duos east of California.