The two head coaches who witnessed the birth of “Linsanity” Feb. 4 at the Garden, the Nets’ Avery Johnson, who was foiled by it, and former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, who thrived with it, expressed varying degrees of surprise Wednesday that Jeremy Lin was allowed to go to Houston.
“I don’t want to specifically talk about their situation,” Johnson said, maintaining NBA decorum, “but I know for us when we’ve invested time into a guy and he’s really improved significantly for us, we’re always thinking, ‘We want to retain the guy.’ If he moves on, we want to try to get something in return.”
The Knicks, by declining to match the Rockets’ three-year, $25.1 million offer sheet, get financial relief, but no tangible asset.
“I can’t speak for other situations, but for us, like Kris Humphries … he hadn’t played this type of basketball [elsewhere],” Johnson said. “We didn’t want to invest [two years] into Kris and then allow him to walk and perform well for another team.”
D’Antoni, speaking to reporters in Manchester, England, where he is with the Olympic team, admitted he expected Lin back with the Knicks and didn’t see them losing a young asset.
“Not when the kicker was they can match. I’m thinking, ‘For sure,’ ” D’Antoni said. “Even when I was there, ‘Well, at least we got him. We don’t have to worry about him blowing up and us not being able to afford it.’ ”
Financial reasons apparently were only part of why the Knicks let Lin go. There was anger about the point guard going back to the Rockets after the Knicks informed they would match the original offer. Financial concerns are a matter of the past for the Nets with deep-pocketed owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
“It is nice because within the framework of the collective bargaining agreement and salary caps, Prokhorov is willing to go all the way,” Johnson said.
Some insist Lin was a creation of D’Antoni’s offensive system. The architect disagrees.
“That’s not fair to anybody, especially not to Jeremy,” D’Antoni said. “For 20 games he was one of the best in the league and he was dominating. … So you can’t discount that he’ll never be able to do it, because not only did he do it, he did it at the highest level.
“I’m happy for him. It’s a great contract, and Houston could find themselves a very good basketball player.”
Knicks teammates Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony, also in England, said they thought Lin would return.
“I know the Knicks organization wanted him back, I know his teammates wanted him back, I felt like Jeremy wanted to come back, but can’t pass up what Houston threw out there,” Chandler said.
Anthony said, “I don’t think nobody really has an idea what his ceiling is. What he was able to do for that little stretch that he played before he got hurt, he was at the all-time high from a game standpoint. … Houston threw something in the game that was kind of crazy.”