While free-agency frenzy has made for an interesting off-season, the “Bluff Deal” seems to be an interesting side bar and strategy in full affect by many NBA teams. Many players like Jeremy Lin, Nicolas Batum, Eric Gordon, and Roy Hibbert entered this off-season as restricted free agents which mean any offer a team made on the player, the team the player has been under contract with can match that offer and keep the player, simple as that. But many teams seem to be using this as a key strategy in receiving players, and or making teams spend more money on players then they want to, and ultimately might screw over the teams cap space.

Two weeks ago it seemed hard to believe that Lin would be playing anywhere but for the Knicks, after coach Woodson made it clear that Lin was the teams starting point guard for the next season, and later team officials further backed this up by saying any offer on the player would be matched. But now after the Rockets offered Lin a 3-year $28 million deal, in which $14.8 million is offered in the third year of that contract, followed by the Knicks quickly reaching out to grab point guard Raymond Felton, it seems highly unlikely that the Knicks will match the Rocket’s the offer. But why after saying all of that, and making it clear that Lin would be their go to man, would they back away? While a lot points towards the hefty third year in the contract, you have to look a lot at the idea that the Knicks were just bluffing in hopes that teams like the Rockets wouldn’t even try and offer the guard anything.

This has also been seen by the Blazers max offer for Hibbert that put the Pacers in a tough decision-making scenario. The team eventually matched the offer, but it probably wasn’t the ideal amount they wanted to dish out to their young center. And the Blazers are currently in the middle of a tight battle with thee Wolves, who recently laid down a max contract for small forward Batum. The Blazers have constantly reiterated that they would match any offer, but now that the offer is a official will they back down? Its made for an interesting off-season so far, and a strategy that we will probably see a lot more of on both sides of the table in the future.