Otis Smith doesn’t watch the news.
As soon as Brook Lopez went down with a foot injury, the Los Angeles Lakers emerged as the front-runners in the race for Dwight Howard. Since then, no respectable competitors have put themselves into the discussion, yet the Orlando Magic still are playing stubborn.
According to ESPN’s Chad Ford, Orlando continues to demand Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol for Howard in any swap. Los Angeles would also be forced to take Hedo Turkoglu and his ugly contract.
If the Magic actually believe the Lakers would be foolish enough to surrender their pair of seven-footers, they’re absolutely insane.
New Jersey can no longer offer Orlando a legitimate trade. Dallas is holding out for next summer. Chicago won’t blow up their roster if Howard can’t give them a guarantee that he’d re-sign.
The Atlanta Hawks are an option, but their last offer to the Magic was Joe Johnson and Josh Smith; that’s a joke.
Yahoo! Sports’ Ardian Wojnarowski reported on Thursday that the Golden State Warriors are willing to deal for Dwight without a guarantee that he’d sign an extension. They are confident in their ability to persuade Howard to stick around in Oakland. Golden State is nuts, though, because they don’t possess the talent to please both the Magic in a trade and D12 in contract negotiations.
L.A. is all that’s left.
Unless the Chicago Bulls to decide to make a push or the Hawks choose to throw Al Horford into an offer, Orlando must accept the fact that taking just Bynum is good enough.
While they may try to create the illusion that there are other teams in the running, there really aren’t any until Chi-Town and ATL ante up.
Going into Thursday night, Bynum was averaging more points a game and rebounds than Howard. His player efficiency rating was over seven points higher, that’s a ton. And the Magic want Pau too…never.
David Daniels is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.
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