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Can the Knicks keep both Lin and Fields?.... even if other teams give them a qualifying offer.

I know they can match Lin with the MLE, what about Landry Fields?

i believe the only way both can be kept is if they sign the QO

The Knicks will have Early Bird rights on Fields.

Knicks really need Fields to take the qualifying offer, would make everything so much easier.

Neither Fields nor Lin are going to take a QO of about $1M for one season when they can get much more.

The Knicks will be able to match whatever offer sheet Fields gets from another team, by using his Early Bird exception. Lin doesn't have EB rights, but they can use their MLE to match whatever offer sheet Lin gets (assuming they prefer to use it on him rather than on someone else).

i thought with the Gilbert Arenas provision, the Knicks needed to use the MLE to match Fields?

As long as there are two threadss on the same subject, I'll post the following on both.

Larry dissects the Knicks' situation with Lin and Lanry in this article on ESPN.com:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/75835 ... jeremy-lin

SamBone wrote:i thought with the Gilbert Arenas provision, the Knicks needed to use the MLE to match Fields?

The Knicks need to have cap room, or an exception, that is the size of the MLE, in order to have the certainty of being able to match whatever offer he gets. It doesn't necessarily have to be the MLE itself. The Early Bird exception they'll have for Fields is the same size as the MLE, and they'll use it and not the MLE to match whatever offer he gets.