I doubt there is any "source". It's just ESPN getting a last article in to draw attention as Howard is expected to make his decision tomorrow.
I KEEP saying $20M in dollars. That is (at least) what they will spend on Barnes, Bogut and their luxury tax bill for the two, even your amnesty scenario. Bottomline, at a minimum you are saying Harrison Barnes (and maybe a late 1st rounder) is worth $20M in 2013, the guaranteed (because there is then no way they could get under the luxury tax this season) possibility of making themselves subject to the repeater tax the next year, and making their pick worse in 2014. Yes, Pau is better than Bogut and Barnes, but how much better is Pau than Bogut at this stage? A couple wins? Is Barnes likely a couple wins better playing major minutes while Kobe is out than Jodie Meeks? If you say "No." then how is he such a great asset? If you say "Yes." then how are you making the argument that they are worse with Bogut and Barnes and amnestying Pau? If the Lakers want to tank, the trade and then amnestying Pau makes no sense. If the Lakers feel Barnes is a fantastic piece and want to try to be competitive in 2013 then is he worth spending $20M on in 2013 and putting them into repeater tax jeopardy? Is he also worth making a division and state rival one of the best teams in the NBA for the forseable future? Trading for Bogut and Barnes only limits the Lakers options and costs them TONS of money for 2013 and likely spots in the 2014 draft.
If we could somehow trade Lin for Dwight that would be awesome. I seriously doubt it. Why would we trade Lin AND Asik for Dwight? Makes no sense when we can sign him outright.
Amnestying Gasol to keep Bogut and Metta (lol) would probably lead to Kobe lynching Mitch and Jim on live tv, and they'd still be paying the luxury tax
LOL! Actually, that was a picture that popped up on my facebook page from liking some fitness professional. So, it was random enough for me to share. It wasn't provocative enough for me not to share.
GSW still need to likely send away a player they don't want to send away and Dwight still has to want to go. This opens up a lot of possibilities for the Rockets I think. Could they send the Lakers enough salary to sign both Howard and Smith outright? If so they could use that as a threat to ATL that they could get Smith and ATL could lose nothing and then get Smith for less by SnTing to the Hawks.
If LA knows he's gone then they'll attempt to trade him so that's why we'll have to offer a package better than what Golden State is offering.
Why would we dump Asik to LAL when we could use him in a S&T with Atlanta for Smith or some other awesome trade scenario no one has thought of yet? Doesn't make much sense to me when don't need to trade anyone to LA to sign Dwight.
It could be very possible that this GS threat is manufactured by the Lakers to force the Rockets or Dallas to come to the table with competitive sign and trade offers in return. At the end of the day, Dwight is going to go wherever he wants to go. If he really wants to go to San Francisco then I dont know what to tell you... He's going to make much less in GS than he would in Houston with the state tax, and the roster depth will be depleted with major rotation players like Klay Thompson going back to LA.... just doesn't make sense to me at all unless this is a manufactured story.
Repeater tax doesnt matter for 2014, but it is a big factor for next year. The Lakers if they trade Howard, get a 70-80 million dollar penalty for being in the tax in 2012. In order to get under, they would have to amnesty Pau and not get anything of value for his expiring deal. It's not happening.
Checklist (LA vs HOU) http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/...ays?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Does anyone know how to embed these types of videos? I can't figure out to do it for ESPN or NBA.com
