Lee to return with Knicks

The New York Knicks and Center/Forward David Lee agreed in principles with a 1 year, $7 million dollar deal, has reported David Aldridge of NBA.com. The source: Lee's agent, Mark Bartelstein. The whole architecture of the deal reminds of the franchise tags used in the NFL. Lee is an important player for the team, he's proven to work under the up-tempo offense ran by Mike D'Antonni, just had a career year however, surprisingly, the Knicks didn't offer him a long term deal because it's very important for Donni Walsh that the Knicks keep as much cap space as possible. Since the money ran out in the NBA, Lee never got a good offer from anybody else and talks about sign and trade deals never quite moved on so his hands were tied while the Knicks had one of the most unproductive offseasons between all the teams, failing signing Jason Kidd, Andre Miller, Jason Williams and Ramon Sessions, so even though both didn't want to, they'll continue with each other at least for the upcoming season. It's not the perfect situation for Lee but in that system, he'll at least have the opportunity to consolidate and even improve his stats whose gave him a whole new status and redefined his career and maybe even upgrade his value on the market for the super free agency summer of 2010 when he should be more harassed with offers because a lot of team will have salary room to use. The Knicks didn't look any good in the middle and the end of last season but at a certain point in the beginning they were fashionable picks to make the playoffs, which prove that the way they play does allow them some chances to steal some wins. The point is that even with the almost confirmed returns of David Lee and Nate Robinson; they still look awful on a conference that everybody, literally, looks better than them however this doesn't seem to be a problem for Walsh who is putting all the eggs on the 2010 summer basket.