NBA Rumors: Latest News and Notes from Around the League

Contrary to popular perception, there are other players still on the trade market and the free-agent circuit who aren't named Dwight Howard.

As the D12 sweepstakes continue to dominate the NBA's offseason, a host of teams not interested in acquiring the surly center have quietly been making the right moves to bolster their rosters for the upcoming season.

Here's a roundup of the latest rumors to emerge as negotiations carry on around the league.

The Celtics Are Still Trying to Work Something Out for Courtney Lee

According to Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald, the Celtics were trying to sign Jason Terry via a sign-and-trade so they would still be able to afford to sign Lee for $5 million.

But the sign-and-trade didn't work out, and now—given the fact that the C's only have their $1.975 million biannual exception left to work with—getting Lee to come to Boston just got a lot harder. Per Bulpett, Lee does want to play for Doc Rivers, but the money just might not make it worth his while.

Meanwhile, knowing that a sign-and-trade wouldn't work out, the C's made it official and signed Terry, according to The Boston Globe's Gary Washburn:

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According to an NBA source, Jason Terry just signed his contract with the #celtics. Its official. Terry signs for mid-level exception

— gary washburn (@GwashNBAGlobe) July 18, 2012"

Bulpett also reports that the Celtics were interested in O.J. Mayo, but after they rejected any and all of Boston's sign-and-trade scenarios, the Mavericks swooped him up.

The Knicks and the Rockets Are In a Fight

Despite the fact that the deadline has passed and the Knicks declined to match the Rockets' offer for Jeremy Lin, the Knicks are still whining about the fact that their star point guard was stolen from them.

According to SI.com's Sam Amick, the Knicks won't say anything about the negotiations until Thursday, but rumor has it that the Knicks feel like the Rockets broke the NBA bro code. Amick writes:

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The root of the Knicks' frustrations with the Rockets, sources said, was the fact that they broke what is seen as an unspoken rule in negotiations by changing an informal offer during the moratorium that ran from July 1 to July 11. Houston initially offered Lin a three-year, $19.5 million deal, and those figures were widely reported after it was put forth.

"

The fact of the matter is, the Knicks chose not to pay Lin what the Rockets thought he was worth. Sure, it would've put them in luxury tax purgatory a few years from now, but they could've made it work, and they chose not to.

This is the big, bad world of the NBA, and the Rockets needed a point guard. They played the restricted free agency game and gave Lin a deal they knew the Knicks would be unable to match. Too bad for New York. 

On a lighter note, Amick also reports that Knicks officials were deliberately "dodging" the Rockets last weekend as Houston attempted to deliver its offer sheet.

The Knicks' Loss is Raymond Felton's Gain

If Jeremy Lin had ended up back in New York after all, Raymond Felton—one of the Knicks' newest acquisitions—would've been an unhappy camper.

Felton, whom the Knicks acquired in a sign-and-trade deal earlier this week, wasn't interested in playing for New York if it meant playing behind Lin, according to ESPN.com's Ian Begley.

Now, Begley reports, Felton has nothing to worry about: He will start, and Jason Kidd will back him up.

This also is an indication that Knicks officials knew long before their announcement on Tuesday that they weren't planning on matching the Rockets' offer for Lin. And that point wasn't lost on Lin himself, according to a different report from Begley.

Upon hearing about Felton's deal with the Knicks, a source told Begley that Lin "'was very surprised [...]. He felt the whole time that the Knicks would just match the offer.'"

Now, everyone's getting what he wants. Lin is getting his payday and Felton gets to start.