The Knicks spent yesterday convincing Jason Kidd to join the team in some capacity and watching as the Rockets kindly negotiated Jeremy Lin's contract for them. The latter offer will be made and hastily matched-- unless something changes or the media have totally misread the situation-- next week. The financial details of the deal with Kidd are still uncertain, and won't be certain until the moratorium ends. As Howard Beck notes, it'll likely come down to either a mini-MLE signing or a sign-and-trade:

The most the Knicks can offer Kidd is $9.7 million over three years, by using the so-called mini-midlevel exception. They could pay him more through a sign-and-trade arrangement with Dallas, an option that was being explored Thursday, according to a person involved in the talks.

The downside to using the MLE money on Kidd is, well, that you lose that MLE money, which could otherwise fetch another pretty useful player. The downside to a sign-and-trade is that the Knicks would have to ditch (and replace with minimum deals) some combination of Toney Douglas, Jerome Jordan, and Josh Harrellson (Update: Dan Gadzuric's contract, I am reminded, would be another especially useful one in a sign-and-trade, and nobody'd miss him). Those guys are replaceable, but they're also pretty much the extent of New York's depth right now, and I also happen to think that all three have the potential to be meaningful contributors (again, in Toney's case). Then again, I love all three and am terribly biased, so don't listen to me.

I need to run out for a little while, but two quick things before I go:

- I think Kelly Dwyer gives a pretty good explanation of the type of basketball stuff Kidd can contribute. The dude still throws a standstill, pinpoint entry pass as well as anybody in the league. (Recall Carmelo Anthony twisting around the block with nobody to feed him all throughout that Heat series and you'll understand the need for that. Granted, Lin could've handled that, but still...).

- I forgot about this! Couple of y'all (and Twitter) brought that up overnight. Weird times.

Cool. More later.