When David Stern denied the Lakers the services of Chris Paul most could read between the lines of Dan Gilbert’s e-mail as to why that moved didn’t go down. In the end the Hornets did deal Paul and it was to a big market. While Gilbert may have said he didn’t want to see another marquee name go off to the City to play hoops, the real reason (according to Stern) for denying the deal had to deal with “basketball related reasons”.
After it was all said and done the Hornets got more youth in return for CP3. The thinking being that the NBA wanted the new owner of the New Orleans franchise (whoever that may be one day) to have a fresh start with to build around young talent.
In other words the Lakers aren’t only old on the court they’re also too old to trade with.
That is why the rumors of what the Orlando Magic would be looking f for in return for Dwight Howard are encouraging.
According to Marc Stein, word through the grapevine is that Orlando wants veteran players so they can remain competitive now instead of rebuilding. Well…it just so happens the Lakers are loaded with vets.
Of course the natural question is how high is the asking price?
Most of the speculation involving the Lakers landing Howard has included the names Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. That might seem too costly as it would leave the Lakers even thinner in the frontcourt.
Makes you wonder why Mitch Kupchak was so quick to pull the trigger on the Lamar Odom deal.
Since this is all rumor there is no need to get too carried away with what if scenarios. At some point though the Magic are going to have to roll up their sleeves to deal with this issue. It seems highly unlikely that anything will happen to change Howard’s mind on staying put in the Magic Kingdom.
Hey, when one door closes another one opens. GM Mitch just has to find it. Losing out on CP3 was painful but landing the next great Laker big man would be a fairy tale ending to all this drama.