Speculation: Morey's FA Target #1 is... Dwight Howard?

Sure, Send Asik to LA for dwight. Asik deserves to win a ring or two with kobe and then we will have the bulls'"why we traded Asik drama" in houston ROFL.
Seriously, Lakers's stars are all above 30. If dwight is gone, they will have trouble to recruits stars when kobe and others retire. I am sure kuchpack will demand a quality replacemant in Asik , a budding star in Parsons and probably royce white ( this guy is big, strong and talented).
Or maybe it will be three or four ways trade that will send a star pf to Houston and land varejao/ lopez (these two are red hot now) in LA. I think Varejao is more likely to land on LA, but this guy is already 30. I believe Lakers will take their chance with Asik .

The better Parsons and Asik play againts Lakers especially in playoff, the higher is our chance to land dwight.
BTW if rockets want Pau gasol I am 100% sure Lakers would be more than happy to give him to us in exchange of one or two of our young stars. The notion of ageless oak will work for lakers, but young ones will be more tempting for them.
I believe this is one of the reason why Lakers want to trade Gasol last season,. They wanted to trade him him while he was still a strong trade chip

 

jopatmc was right.

Howard will be a Rocket, and Romney will be inaugurated.

 

Something crazy would have to happen for Dwight to force his way out of LA before the trade deadline. We are talking something like Kobe pulling a Delonte on Dwight's mother or something like that. Its such a short time for things to go that bad that quick. And seeing how freaking smily Dwight is on the court now, I dont see him hating life there in LA right now. He seems so happy it makes me roll my eyes everytime I see him chuck a 3 pointer and start giggling like a 14 year old teen age girl.

As Bima pointed out, after the trade deadline the only team that can give him an additional 30mil guaranteed with his bird rights will be LA, or the team is traded to prior to the trade deadline. With that being his last major contract he might sign in the current CBA when going to be in his 30's next time he is a free agent, its a no-brainer for him to sign with the current team, and worry about getting traded later if he's unhappy.

We can dream all we want, but I just dont see it happening this year. Maybe next year after he is already locked in it will be much easier to trade for him if things go bad. Who knows, but I dont think its something Morey is really paying that much attention to at all this year.

 

Nobody is talking about this. The idea is not a Dwight Howard trade at all. I think this is where you're getting your wires crossed.

The idea is that Dwight will not ink a long-term deal with the Lakers and will sign with another team in free agency this off-season.

It inches along the scale from impossible to increasingly plausible with every Lakers loss.

 

Yes, I get that. From both angles its highly implausible. "Nobody is talking about this" because nobody is realizing how free agency really works.

Why would Howard not ink a deal with LA after the trade deadline???... 30 Mil more guaranteed in possibly his last major contract extension, in the current CBA. He has already seen that he can force his way out of a city if he so chooses later on. So, it doesn't make any sense for him to give up the $ just because he is unhappy with the drama going on in LA when he can force his way out of LA later on after he inks his deal with the Lakers this Summer.

The only way you are going to get Dwight to sign long term in Houston is if you are able to trade for him before the trade deadline this year. Which is why I mentioned something "Delonte/Lebron" crazy would have to happen in the next 2 months for that to happen. I just dont see it since the guy is smiling ear to ear on the court every time you see him play a game for the Lakers.

At the trade deadline in 2014 you might be able to trade for him pretty easily though, but in the next 2 months I just dont see it. And I REALLY dont see him NOT signing a long term contract with LA this Summer.

 

Why indeed?

Everything we hear from Dwight about his new job in LA is "playoffs this" and "championship that." He's a manchild who likes the spotlight, sure, and obviously money always plays a part in these decisions, but he's there to win. I can think of nothing more contrary to that than the Lakers not making the playoffs to begin with.

We're still at this point in the season where all of this seems so remote, still seems like strained conjecture. But we are really just a couple of Lakers losing streaks away from multiple Bill Simmons articles about this, and league-wide gossip that this is exactly how things will go down, if Dwight Howard hits the off-season without being locked into a long-term contract.

Oh, make no mistake, the media will use words like "fit" and "system", and maybe "culture" in describing the Howard situation. And they'll probably blame Mike D'Antoni and make him the whipping boy for the failure, because that's something that is for some reason historically acceptable to do.

I see this all developing as an increasingly plausible scenario every time the Lakers lose to a team they're supposed to beat, and every time their ability to make the playoffs at all this season is jeopardized that much more.

We can laugh about all of this if they go on some 15-20 game winning streak and really hit their stride at midseason, or maybe you'll be remember posts like these as oddly prophetic if it all goes south for that organization this season. Either way, it's going to be fun to see how this story unfolds.

 

I would like to see Kevin Love force his way out of Minnesota than Dwight Howard.

Dwight already stated before that he doesn't want to go to Houston.

Kevin said that if things doesn't work this year in Minny, something might happen.

 

*yawn*

 

This.

 

I'm scared to see that 70% if he calls what he's doing now 100%

 

Hey I never said the media was not going to make a headline story out of it. They are going to milk every second of drama out of this as they can. Right now they look like a big mess at times, and a true contender the next. Hence their record.

So we have two things here to judge what can happen in a Dwight Howard move that could put him in Rockets red-

-Is Dwight going to force his way out before the trade deadline?- Unlikely to inplausible.

-Is Dwight going to re-sign after this season if the Lakers end up with a bigger mess on their hands if they somehow miss the playoffs or would he look elsewhere??...

IMO, its highly unlikely they miss the playoffs, but if that does happen its going to make for alot of headlines, side stories, and drama, but I still think that in the end, this team is going to pitch Dwight that they are going to build a team around him moving forward one way or another.

Also, Dwight isn't dumb enough of a business person to simply give up his bird rights to walk to another team in free agency next Summer just for the sake of winning elsewhere when the team he is leaving has more banners hanging in the rafters of their arena than any other team in the NBA. Its going to be hard for him to sell it to the media that he is leaving the Lakers because he wants to win championships.

Him and his business partners know that even if he is unhappy in year 1 of his new deal, he can easily force his way out of LA VIA trade to Brooklyn, NY, or even Houston if he wants to. Why not take the money now, and a chance on a team with the best track record in the NBA?? To me, its not worth spending much more energy getting your hopes up for.

Still, if for some reason he becomes available, for sure the Rockets should be more than willing to go the extra mile to try and get Dwight in Houston at all means necessary.

 

Nahh. Lets trade Toney Douglas for Lebron then trade D-Mo for Dwight Howard.

PROFIT!!

 

Morey's #1 FA Target Should be.....

Morey's #1 FA Target Should be..... No one. The team as is has a bright future. They have most of what they need on the team now. Their main focus now should be on drafting players to help cover weaknesses that the team has.
Most of the FA's that are being thrown out have already turned their backs on us once before and many of you want to give them a chance to do it again. They have made laughing stocks of the Rockets and you still want them in Houston? Bunch of rejection freaks.
I can understand wanting Delight Howard here, but he is too much of a clown to lead a team anywhere.
Miss Paul could break down at any moment. Pup Gasol is on his way out and as much as i like Iggy, he too is fast approaching his breaking point.
Fans should be happy with what the genius that is Morey has done so far with this team. We are on our way.

 

I mean....I'd take Dwight...

 

I agree

 

Oh I have no doubt that the Lakers will make a pitch to Dwight this off-season that will involve talk about his jersey hanging up, championships left to win, and will basically feature Kupchak deferring to the Lakers' storied franchise history.

I feel like that's a tougher sell, though, when the franchise can't put a product out on the floor that wins basketball games. They'd have better luck trying to tell Dwight something cheesy like "Dwight, you want to be a movie star, right? Well look over there...see the Hollywood sign? Huh? Huh??" Who knows, he might be dumb enough to fall for it?

Do you remember when the Celtics--a team with just as much history if not more than LA--was basically just Paul Pierce wasting his prime for 10 years while the franchise surrounded him with such breathtakingly awful players as Raef LaFrentz and Antoine Walker? These were players who were supposed to get the Celtics to that "next level" by the way. :grin:

Boston went through their own dark period before assembling another championship team, and LA seems due for their own bout with humility. It's nice that these teams can boast a track record of winning in the past, but I'm not sure that's enough to make them a desirable landing spot for free agents, not always, not in this day and age.

 

I disagree.

Morey should always be targeting free agents. In fact, in theory, he should always be valuing all nba players that can help the Rockets, and that definitely includes Pau and Dwight. Once they become free agents, Morey will then compare the market price with the value they bring to the Rockets. If the value they bring is greater than the market price, then he needs to bid. That's his job.

 

LeMarcus Aldridge

 

Only if Howard is willing to take the MLE and play Robin to Asik's Batman.