Magic Posturing About Keeping Dwight Howard Until Feb. 2013?

If the Mavericks had something to offer the Magic Dwight's agent would not be using them as leverage, trust me.

 

That does make sense, thanks.
If Dwight does sign, will Dirk still be able to produce at an all-star level? Can they afford to put a solid team around the two within the cap limits?

 

Dirk is not a selling point, he's gonna be age 36. Mavs have nothing to offer from a basketball perspective and they can't offer as much money as we could. Dwight would NEVER walk there. It's purely a negotiating ploy by a-hole Fegan.

 

As stated in the article, Dallas only has two options. Dwight remains a Magic until the end of the year (highly unlikely) then at the end of the season, Orlando basically just trades him to Dallas via S&T and get a trade exception. Maybe even unload one of those bad contracts since Dallas has a lot of their current players on one/two year deals. Second option is traded to Houston and walks. LA and Brooklyn won't be able to sign him. I think Morey should trade for Dwight. If you're Dwight, of course you want LA or Brooklyn. And of course, you want to play with Dirk and for Cuban. But when push comes to shove and like we've all talked about ad nauseam, very tough to turn down guaranteed money.

 

And, that's the other thing. They won't have the cap space to do much of anything if they manage to sign Howard. No flexibility, no trade assets, crappy draft picks, and a 36 year old "star" to play with. Yeeeeah, I'm sure that's where Howard wants to play for the next 4 years.

 

I think it will be a dog fight for Dallas and Houston, if Dwight get traded here. The reason is want a team owner like Mark Cuban is never afraid of Leslie Alexander is going over the luxury tax cap. Also, Rick Carlisle has proven himself as a champ team head coach.

 

Sure, Dirk is a selling point in the short term.

Howard probably sees it as team up with Dirk in the short term, then when he retires, it becomes 'my' team. Cuban builds around me then.

 

Dallas still has a good team outside of Dirk. Plus, having Dwight will take a lot of the pressure off of Dirk. They could still win with that duo. They could actually win a lot sooner than Houston would. Howard would have to sign here for us to win with him and that won't happen for another few years. Won't be enough players around him to win within the 1st two years of his contract.

 

LOL. The Dallas option is a joke. Dirk and Dwight would be eating up $43 million of cap by themselves. Dallas has $15 mill left to play with. They gonna sign Steph Curry to a max deal. Then what? How do they round out a championship roster? If we get Dwight here, the odds are overwhelming that he stays.

 

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The question is that is Leslie Alexander willing to go over the cap in the next 2 years to bring some quality players here? If not we are just in the same situation as Mavs. While 2 years after when their cap get space, they may as well build around Howard like us. I'm not saying Dallas is in any better chance to sign Howard with us, but they definitely do have a chance.

 

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15 mil to play with, that ain't bad. As opposed to what, I've seen around here 4 million if we were to trade for Dwight? 4 mil, is that right?

How does Dallas round out a championship roster? The same way other championship contenders have. Guys willing to take less(or the minimum) to have a chance to win a ring.

 

That $15 million is in the dream-world scenario of a rebuilding team taking on 35-year-old Shawn Marion's $9+ million deal for nothing. In other words, not happening, and Dallas already used amnesty. Better chance of the Rockets dealing Asik for that space.

PS: Dirk's PER last year was his lowest since 1999 and his field goal percentage his lowest since his rookie year of 1998. He'll be 35 himself next June. The decline has begun. I have a hard time seeing that as a major selling point for Dwight.

 

We'd only have four million to work with if we nab Howard? Really? I thought we'd have more than enough to work with.

 

Yeah. They don't have $15M. They have much less than that. With Dwight onboard they would have almost no cap space. And no they don't have a good team aside from Dirk. Virtually every decent player they have will have to leave as an expiring contract for them to have enough cap space to sign Dwight.

Their window if they sign Dwight is maybe 1-2 years if they're lucky and Dirk ages especially well. Even then, do you really think a Dwight/Dirk combo with almost no supporting cast is good enough to beat OKC, LA, the Heat, etc?

DAL is an EMPTY THREAT. Stop worrying about them.

 

How is that any different than Orlando building around him or Houston for that matter? Novitzki + Howard isn't winning a chip. Plus the rebuilding starts today rather than sitting around watching Novitzki age before Howard's eyes.

 

I'm not sure on that 4 million number. Don't quote me on that.

 

As for the amount of space WE'D have if we traded for Dwight, it entirely depends on how many bad contracts we take back. Could be the max if we take back only, say, Duhon, could be very little if we take back Turkey Glue and more.

The thing is if we did take back a lot of bad contracts that would mean giving up very little in the way of trade assets (rookies, picks, etc). Or, we could give up a lot of trade assets and take back little to no salary. Orlando doesn't get to have it both ways, Morey isn't stupid.

So, we'll either have

a) Plenty of assets to make a follow-up trade to surround Dwight with talent

OR

b) Plenty of flexibility to build around Dwight.

Dallas can't offer those things. All they have to offer is Dirk Nowitzki's corpse.

 

I always try to be unbiased, but I don't see the Lakers or the Mavericks landing Dwight. Bynum has zero incentive to sign an extension before the season ends. He would be walking away from a lot of guaranteed money if he does. Why would he tell the Magic he would re-sign with them if they trade for him? He wants to be on the Lakers with Nash feeding him the ball. I am sure Bynum would walk to Houston if traded to the Magic (thank you for not re-signing Dragic, Morey) to be a on a better team with no state income taxes.

Lopez has to play like a max contract signed for the next 4 years post-injury. If they play up-tempo with Williams and Johnson I can see him scoring easily. I still don't like their chances unless a lot of things go wrong for the Rockets this season.