Brooklyn Nets: Re-visiting the Jeremy Lin trade to Atlanta Hawks

The Brooklyn Nets on Friday traded Jeremy Lin to the Atlanta Hawks in a salary dump, also sending a 2025 2nd-round pick and swap rights in 2023 to Atlanta and getting back the rights to Isaia Cordinier and a 2020 second-rounder.

Last week, the Brooklyn Nets traded veteran combo guard Jeremy Lin to the Atlanta Hawks for a 2020 second-round pick and rights to overseas player Isaia Cordinier. The Nets also gave up a 2025 second-round pick and right to swap second-round picks in 2023.

The Hawks will absorb Lin’s $12.5 million salary in the final year of his contract and will look to pair him with Dennis Schroder and rookie point guard Trae Young.

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Lin, who was often injured in his time in Brooklyn, will get a fresh start on another rebuilding team. If the Hawks look to trade Schroder this summer or during the season, Lin will split time with the rookie Young and lift some of the weight off his shoulders.

Lin is also a great locker room guy who will mesh well with a young Hawks squad searching for veteran leadership. With his contract set to expire next season, Lin will be extra motivated to prove he still can perform at a high level, even as he turns 30 years old next month.

The Nets made this deal for three reasons. Lin, who was signed to a three-year, $37 million free-agent deal in the summer of 2016, had only played in 37 games with the Nets in two seasons.

He suffered a hamstring injury in his first season in Brooklyn and suffered a season-ending ruptured patellar tendon on opening night last season.

He was brought in because of his familiarity with head coach Kenny Atkinson, but Lin could never stay healthy during his tenure in Brooklyn.

He was given an opportunity to lead this rebuilding Nets team and averaged 14.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 36 games in the 2016-17 season. After suffering a season-ending injury last season in the first game, Lin’s days as a Net became numbered.

The second reason why the Nets made this deal was because of the logjam that had formed in the Nets backcourt.

After the D’Angelo Russell trade last offseason, Lin was not seen as the featured guard anymore and with the surprise emergence of Spencer Dinwiddie last season, the Nets felt they could part ways with Lin.

The Nets had Russell, Dinwiddie, Allen Crabbe, Caris LeVert and Joe Harris in the backcourt so trading Lin and his contract seemed like a no-brainer for Sean Marks.

The move will allow the Nets to have Russell and Dinwiddie as the primary ball handlers on the team moving forward and they agreed to a two-year deal with free agent Shabazz Napier on Saturday to add depth.

The last and probably most important reason why the Nets made this trade was to free up more cap space for another trade.

Shortly after this trade went down, the Nets acquired Kenneth Faried, Darrell Arthur, a 2019 top-12 protected first-round pick and a 2020 second-round pick from the Denver Nuggets for Brooklyn-born guard Isaiah Whitehead.

The Nets had to take on $21 million in salary and with the $1.5 million free agent cap hold on Harris in effect, the Nets made this move.

The Nets’ cap situation looks much better without Lin’s hefty salary in the mix and allows the Nets to continue to stock pile draft picks for bloated contracts, even as they regain control of their draft picks again.

The Jeremy Lin the trade for me gets a 9/10. Nothing against Lin, but the reality was he couldn’t stay healthy in his time here and his latest injury is hard to come back 100 percent from.

The emergence of other guards on this team while he was out is also another reason this is a good trade. I don’t know where Lin would’ve gotten playing time with the likes of Russell and Dinwiddie controlling the ball and with the Nets trying to go young, Lin was the odd man out.

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Lin will be missed in the locker room, as many teammates like Rondae Hollis-Jefferson were very close to him. This trade came as a shock to many, but was all a part of Sean Marks’ end goal for the Nets.