Jeremy Lin has verbally agreed to sign a four-year offer sheet with the Houston Rockets on July 11, according to a source close to the talks.


The four-year deal is worth $10.2 million over the first two seasons and $9.3 million in each of the last two years. The fourth season is a team option.

The Knicks would have three days to match the offer after Lin, a restricted free agent, signs it July 11.

A report in the New York Post on Wednesday, citing a league source, said the Rockets were planning to offer Lin a backloaded deal worth roughly $30 million. According to the same source, the deal would pay Lin $5 million in the first season and $5.2 million in the second, and then would increase to as much as $10 million per year in the third and fourth seasons.

"Jeremy Lin's an excellent player," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told the Post. "We got to know him firsthand when he was with the Rockets early this season. We think he'd make a fantastic addition to our team."

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The Knicks can offer Lin, a restricted free agent, a four-year deal worth $24.5 million.

In 35 games with the Knicks this past season, Lin averaged 14.6 points and 6.2 assists per game.

While both Lin and the Knicks are hoping for a reunion, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard this past weekend that if a club offers Lin a backloaded contract that pays him an eight-figure salary in the third and fourth years, as Houston has done, the Knicks could be given pause about matching the offer.

With the new collective bargaining agreement employing a more punitive luxury tax, beginning in the 2013-14 season, the Knicks are extremely concerned about the financial ramifications of such a deal, sources said.