I think the Rockets have mustered enough arsenal to best any offer from the Nets. The Lakers on the other hand...
If there is a possibility of Howard going here, it's most probably going to be a combination of what people have mentioned here. We can't gut our core of primary players (at least not all of them) or Howard wouldn't want to go here. I'm thinking they get our promising young players in Bud, PatPat, Lowry or Dragic, Thabeet, etc. along with as many picks as we can throw their way. In return, we get Howard and some atrocious contract like Agent Zero and probably some fillers to make the figures work as payment. I don't see why they'd want Scola or Martin in a re-building effort. Gutting the team effectively limits their trading options or any other team for that matter. It's a long shot but meh, i think there's a chance if the package is right and our FO can sell it.
Yeah, that is a strong offer but I think it will depend on what happens in the lockout. A problem with the salary cap is not simply that you can re-sign your own players to go over the cap, but also that you can trade your re-signed players for other teams' expensive players (which is what a Bynum-Howard deal would be). This allows teams to be permanently over the cap and destroys the value of saving up cap space. I think this is an issue that will come up in competitiveness discussions.
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regarding dwight howard and the magic, here are a few assumptions i am comfortable making: 1. dwight will not resign with them in 2012, 2011 will be his last year in ORL 2. the magic will trade dwight during the 2011-2012 season 3. stan van gundy will be fired 4. dwight definitely seeks to join a contender 5. dwight is certainly intrigued by the knicks' and lakers' talents 6. dwight wants to be the best player on which ever team he goes to 7. though it is unlikely to be a deciding factor in dwight's decision making, his very close relationship with stan van gundy must not be overlooked 8. the magic front office is crippled by the $34mil left on hedo turkoglu's contract over the next 3 years (gilbert arenas' contract is also an albatross, too big it'd be hard to move it) 9. jason richardson's expiring provides some relief, they won't resign him 10. dwight respects yao and wishes his offensive attack was anywhere close to yao's arsenal the magic are inevitably heading into rebuilding mode. they would want to gain young players with upside, cap relief, draft picks, and a solid 20ppg go to guy to make the rebuilding years easier on the eyes with a few wins here and there. if dwight howard is the rockets' main target, and i'm not saying he should be, but if he is, hiring stan van gundy certainly wouldn't hurt our chances, and it certainly wouldn't make us frontrunners, but it certainly makes us an interesting option for dwight. i think this is the best the rockets can do with what they have: hire stan van gundy hire an assistant coach with a proven record of improving elite big men resign yao to a vet's minimum resign chuck hayes get commitments from carroll dawson and hakeem to contribute to dwight's development if he joins the rockets DRAFT DAY: trade the 23rd pick, the high 2nd rd pick from LAC, MEM 2013 1st rd pick (lottery protected, but looks like the grizz won't be in the lottery for awhile), and cash for a TOP 7 2011 pick (teams will look to trade out of this weak draft). use that pick to draft a player generally perceived to be a potential franchise player (think derrick favors). this player would preferably be a C or SG, but any position works really. let's call him player X. draft jordan hamilton at 14 and keep him. some time in december/january, as the trade deadline approaches and after the NBA sees the potential player X has, offer orlando the following trade: ORL receives: (approx 25mil) player X luis scola chase budinger OR courtney lee (lee makes it a better offer, but i'd rather keep him) jordan hill hasheem thabeet OR brad miller (whichever ORL prefers) NYK 2012 1st rd pick (this pick looks better now after the sweep, and inherently NOT trading dwight to NYK keeps it better) HOU 2014 1st rd pick HOU receives: (approx 27mil) dwight howard hedo turkoglu magic post-trade roster: nelson - arenas player X - redick - budinger/lee budinger/lee - q rich scola - bass - hill anderson - thabeet/miller - hill rockets post-trade roster: lowry - dragic martin - lee/budinger - twill turkoglu - hamilton - twill hayes - patterson howard - miller/thabeet considering we'd take turkoglu's huge contract off their hands, and considering the package offered includes 1 proven core player, 1 promising franchise player, 3 young upside players, and 2 1st rd draft picks, i feel orlando simply has to say yes to this deal. i doubt there would be better offers out there. this one does it all. for the rockets, they get the franchise player AND defensive center they wanted, in the form of the giant one superman player, and hedo turkoglu (the SF upgrade so many rockets fans want to see) provides much needed playoff experience to this roster. he is a spot up shooter who, when not creating his own shot, would work perfectly with lowry. hamilton would ease in behind turkoglu without being forced into the starting lineup. plus, with miller backing up dwight, turkoglu and miller can keep a structure for the adelman offense to live on even without adelman. OH AND WE DONT HAVE TO GIVE UP MARTIN. yay. the only really difficult part of this plan is trading up into the top5/top7 of this year's draft. other than that, i believe this is a completely realistic and workable plan. this is the team i want to see.
LA could offer Gasol and Bynum for Howard and Arenas, topping any package of "assets" we could offer. With a big 3 of Kobe, Odom and Howard, pencil in LA for titles until Kobe's knees completely erode.
Howard would single handedly get me excited about the Rockets again. Things have been so grim with the annual injuries of TMAC and Yao.
Didnt he already say he wanted to go to LA? As much as I would love or this to happen, I'm going to refrain from getting too excited about it. After the Chris Bosh/ Melodrama I can't handle any more big trade speculation.
the likelihood of orlando trading dwight to the lakers, given the whole shaq fiasco is lower than the chances of them trading him to miami.
honestly what talent will be around him at the lakers? they have a lot now, but if you factor in this year and then next year which may well be a full season lockout. Kobe will be 34, pau 32, odom 33, artest 32, and dwight will be 27. See the issue here?
The, ahem, 'Anakeim' Kings trading Cousins and seeing if they can ship out Evans and others for Paul or a non signing Williams might well be the main players.
I guess saying give Orlando anything for Dwight is the cool thing to say without realizing Dwight would not want to go to a team who literally has nothing left after trading for him.
Why doesn't anyone want to go here? What's so great about LA, NY and Florida?We have a sunshine, low taxes and a large market too! Is it Yao Ming's 7'6 lingering shadow over this team?
Chris Kaman's expiring contract A sign and traded Deandre Jordan Minny 2012 unproteced pick Al Farouq Aminu for Howard and a couple bad contracts to make the salaries work Howard + Griffin + Gordon could be the next big three...
Because our team is mediocre and have nothing to offer Not that hard to figure out We just tend to overvalue what we have because....well, we're the hometown fans
AlexKennedyNBA Alex Kennedy Prior to Game 4, Howard confronted Ric Bucher and asked, "Where am I going, so I can tell my agent and my family?" 1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
