Do you think that the choices are 'help the Lakers' or 'do nothing and be petty'? You must be a Laker fan.
Or maybe Orlando places a value on making Howard and his agent happy. Trading Howard where he wants to go keeps them from looking like the bad guy. Keeping his agent happy ensures he and other agents don't blackball them from clients and other than that maybe a pat on the back from the media for giving them the second item (NY) on their wishlist, Kobe vs. LeBron.
Overall the trade helped both the Lakers and Memphis. If Memphis was not so incompetent at drafting they could have had a roster of or something similar: PG: Conley SG: Harden SF: Rudy Gay PF: Kevin Love C: Marc Gasol They missed out on so many good players like Westbrook, Kevin Love, Eric Gorden, Curry, Rubio, Harden, Hibbert, Tyreke Evans. Also gave away Lowry for scraps.
The grizzlies trade ended up being alright but it still wasn't a good trade. It gave one team a top 5 pf for a bunch of unknown assets and no high draft picks. Marc Gasol becoming great was pretty much a fluke in terms of that trade, if he was supposed to be this good he would not have been drafted that low. This trade would also be pretty terrible as they are not getting really good assets to move forward with. The Magic should be looking to get high draft picks and young players, that is what you do when you trade away a franchise center. The laker trade does not give anything close to that. The rockets could easily give something better even for a rental.
The West conference will be more stacked I just think Orlando knows they cant do much this year. They just dont want Miami to win the championship again.
I didn't really want Howard but seeing him go to LA for just Bynum is even more lopsided than the Gasol deal. If they had given up Pau and at least two unprotected first round picks it would've been somewhat fair. How fun would it be if the Magic GM is fired right after this deal? Morey stood firm so my guess is he became desperate, but not getting at least Bynum / Pau in return is beyond belief.
Does anyone know what type of protection those picks are? Top 3, top 5, lottery protected, etc. Bad deal for Orlando. I can't believe all LA gives up is Bynum and a worthless super late 1st round pick and they get Howard..
This trade is 10 times more lopsided than the Gasol-CP3 deal last summer. LA gives up a protected 1st in 2017 and Bynum for Howard? That's it? Ridiculous. Basketball reasons.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Go easy on Hennigan. Hearing Orl Pres Alex Martins likely ran this one. Always good to have non-bball folks make critical decision.</p>— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnhollinger/status/233888970566684672" data-datetime="2012-08-10T11:34:10+00:00">August 10, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This trade is worse for Orlando and better for LA than the one that I thought was a pile reported by Wojnarowski. /sososososoconfused
So is Howard for sure signing in LA? I have doubts that this is a win for them just yet -- maybe I'm just an extreme Laker hater (huge possibility). Like, does anyone have a tally on all the draft picks they've given up this offseason? Combine that with Nash being old, Kobe looking real old during the Olympics, Howard's back, Pau's sandy vagina, Kobe's whiny alpha dog vs. Howard's whiny alpha dog ... I dunno. Perfect scenario? Howard's back isn't up to snuff, Kobe's ego clashes with Howard's ego, the triangle offense plus Kobe's chucking all but nullifies Nash's abilities, Ron Artest hurts someone and this thing is Payton/Kobe/Shaq/Malone 2.0. One can dream.
