[CBS Sports] Howard no lock for Lakers; interested in Rockets

Yea, think he's referring to the Coon

http://m.espn.go.com/nba/story?storyId=9340696&src=desktop

 

It has Houston rockets and Dallas mavs in the title. It is on the front page of espn mobile at least.

 

Yup yup thanks classic that is the one.

 

Dwight sure didn't expect to become a glorified Tyson Chandler and media war of words from Kobe and MDA.

See the problem is that you can read into everything and believe just like everyone else, and just like last year, when everyone believed Houston had the best package acquiring Dwight, but in fact, GMs like Mitch and agents like Fagen are more cunning and manipulative than average fans like you and me. Those two knows exactly what botton to push on Dwight.

Let's not forget Mitch pulled trades, what seemingly improbable at the time, by acquiring two top talents last season.

Do you really believe Mitch will just surrender Dwight to us without a fight?? At least, not until Dwight puts his John Handcock on an offere sheet presented by Morey, I will be cautiously optimistic.

 

I would say that the silence indicates nothing is brewing. To do stuff, they have to talk to people, so then things leak and rumors start. If there are no leaks, it's probably because they aren't talking to anyone, so they aren't doing anything. I imagine they'd spend this time defining a road map back to contention with Howard so they can make their best pitch, and mapping out their Plan B, so they can move quickly as soon as Howard leaves.

 

That's not true.

Also, the Lakers were already one of the most consistently mentioned teams when it came to trade/FA targets for Dwight.

The situation last year for Houston is absolutely completely different to this year, it's not even close. As of now, it's a fair statement to say the Rockets are probably 50/50 in terms of odds of acquiring Dwight.

 

Can the CF memebrs please stop posting in Lakersground. You're embarrising yourselves and and the forum. Thanks.

 

Thanks JR. Yeah not that great of an article. Why even mention waiving chandler parsons. Lazy journalism.

 

Houston did have the best package last year to acquire Dwight. The problem was that the other Rockets, at the time, appeared to suck, and Dwight wanted to go to a situation where he could contend. As such, Fegan and everyone around Dwight bullied, intimidated and threatened the Magic into sending him to an acceptable destination.

There are no magic "buttons to push". It's about what Dwight wants. He didn't want Houston last summer. He does now, because the team around him is significantly better. Pretty simple.

 

I didn't like our team last year, and I'm a rockets fan, so i can fully understand why Dwight didn't.

If we had one more year of that god awful 42 win veteran crap....

 

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Dan Fegan has his office in LA and is well connected there. It might be Dwight's best interest to join Houston but it definetely not his.

If Dwight decides to stay in LA, Fegan becomes an instant hero among his powerful friends in LA, the savior of Lakers from tanking, the one who delivered Dwight, and the one who miraculously convinced Dwight to stay when all seemed lost. Who wouldn't want to be a hero these days? He is a lawyer and I assume he will do everything in his persuasive nature to convince Dwight to stay. I wouldn't be surprised if Fegan knows exactly how to push certain bottons just to change Dwight's mind.

Is Fegan a straight shooter without any ulterior motives? I highly doubt any lawyer fits that description, but let see if Fegan will become as bully as he was when he forced Magic to take on a crapping deal just because it was his client's wish to be traded to LA.

 

I agree he has all the motivations you mentioned to push Dwight. But this time he has to be more subtle bc Dwight clearly agreed with him last time. Now he can persuade but if Dwight says I want Houston then he will make it happen. To do otherwise would be risking showing he is not acting in Dwight's best interest. So the issue is what kinds of arguments he can muster to subtly push Dwight to houston without crossing the line, and what LA can do to help or hurt that.

One possibility is - stay in LA and if it doesn't work out then they promise they will trade you to Brooklyn for Lopez and other assets. No LA can't give you a promise in writing but they give you a secret handshake and if you really want Brooklyn this will be your only chance and if they renege well you're still in LA and Kobe etc will be gone and they'll fire D'Antoni then. To me that's the argument they'll make.

 

You said it yourself: it was Dwight's wish.

Now, Fegan would have to flip it 180 degrees and get Dwight to go against himself and his instinct. While not impossible, it's an apples-and-oranges comparison with last summer.

Not impossible, but an extreme longshot and not worth worrying about, based on what we know now.

 

I really don't expect this to work because that's exactly the agreement Dwight thought he had with Orlando in March 2012. Stay and if things don't look better, we'll move you to Brooklyn later. Only Orlando didn't hold their end of the bargain, and that's when Dwightmare: Chapter 2 began.

Dwight would have to be the biggest idiot on the planet to fall for the same trick twice in a year. I don't think that's realistic.

 

Agreed. I would hope he would not fall for it again. But this time the fallback is getting stuck in LA which is still a decent option.

 

This time, his interest in Houston is very real. Why would he "fall back" to LA, when he can have everything he wants here with the Rockets? This isn't like last season, where he wanted nothing to do with us.

 

Despite what he says, I think he does care about pleasing people. Or at the least, what peoples perception of him are.

Leaving LA will have emotional, perceptual and historical consequences. If the players, the management and the fans in LA were all telling him to f**k off, then his decision wouldnt be a decision at all.

 

I think Fegan will have to convince Dwight that there are BASKETBALL reasons to stay in LA.

Starting in July, he may be in constant communication with Kupchak and trying to find what the short-term and long-term plans are. And I'm sure Kupchak is telling him why those plans fit well with Dwight.

I'm just not sure if LA's argument can be made to sound better than Houston's.

The main advantage I see LA having is that it's the most popular team in the world. It's glamorous and it has a ton of history. If someone was driven to be truly great, they might want to do it on the biggest stage. If someone truly believed that they were a transformational player, then it would be hard not to try to measure up against some of the greats of all time.

But that can also be a lot of pressure. And if Dwight believes himself to be a really really really good player, but not an all-time great, then being measured up against Shaq, Wilt, and Kareem may not be something he wants to do.

In Houston, people aren't going to keep measuring him against Hakeem and Yao. They'll just be happy to have another great center. They're more forgiving in that sense.