Jeremy Lin Trade: Are Signs Pointing to the New York Knicks Letting Linsanity Move to the Houston Rockets?

Although no official statement has been made, signs are pointing to a Jeremy Lin leaving the Knicks and heading to Houston. 

Knicks on Saturday night agreed with the Trailblazers to a sign-and-trade deal sending Jared Jeffries and Dan Gadzuric to Portland in exchange for Raymond Felton and Dan Gadzuric. With this addition, Felton makes the Knicks's third point guard in the roster prompting the question if the Knicks intend to re-sign point-guard Jeremy Lin.

According to NBA.com, Felton reportedly agreed to a three-year, $10 million deal and paying someone that sum to play as the back-up of the point guard's backup is a bit stretched.

When Lin heard of Felton joining the Knicks, he responded with surprise.

According to ESPN New York, a source close to Lin said, "He[Lin] was very surprised. He felt the whole time that the Knicks would just match the offer."

Jason Kidd signed with the Knicks on a three-year, $9.5 million deal in the previous weeks and initially it was believed that the move consisted in Kidd helping mentoring and training Lin.

The Houston Rockets have already signed Lin to a three-year $25.1 million offer sheet on Friday, making the terms of Lin's salary $5 million the first year, $5.225 million the second, and $14.898 million on the third.

For the Knicks, matching the Rocket's offer sheet is not as straightforward at this point in time. If they were to match and re-sign Lin, they would have to pay $14.898 million during Lin's third year, a year in which the Knicks already have Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler's salary tab already at $62.2 million - $8 million shy of the salary tax threshold. Thus, the Knicks would exceed that threshold by signing Lin, and that would imply paying monetary penalties which teams generally try to avoid.

Jeremy Lin has already signed the offer sheet with Houston and now the Knicks have until the end of Tuesday to respond.

Jeremy Lin won the Espy's 2012 Breakthrough Athlete of the Year award on July 12, beating out beating out Anthony Davis, Robert Griffin III, Rob Gronkowski and Alex Morgan.

The New York Knicks' drive of winning six of seven games last season with Lin as point-guard, caused a Jeremy Lin fever called "Linsanity" to rise.

If Lin is traded to Houston, many Knicks fans will probably find themselves surprised since the undrafted Harvardian arguably was the first to make the Knicks a relevant team since the Latrell Sprewell, Alan Houston era back in 1999.