Until not too long ago, the Golden State Warriors didn’t look like favorites to land Dwight Howard, having only the trade option, something the Los Angeles Lakers wouldn’t listen to, to offer. But putting Andrew Bogut along with either Klay Thompson or Harrison Barnes might be able to change all that.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the Warriors have met with Howard and are trying to sell him on a sign & trade deal that will give the Lakers Andrew Bogut, who is a free agent by the end of the next season, and hopefully they’ll be able to sell the Lakers on taking Richard Jefferson or Andris Bierdins, who aren’t going to give the Lakers much, but along with Bogut will clear $23 million of cap space, giving the Lakers a lot of freedom in the 2014 summer.
The main thing is convincing Howard that a team with him, Thompson, Curry and Barnes is going to be elite in the Western Conference, presumably as good as the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs.
It’s not just about being as good, but it’s about playing in a system that’s more comfortable to Howard, similar to what he played in with the Orlando Magic (making two conference finals), along with a emerging superstar like Curry and a very unselfish offensive game.
Certain rumors arising from his meeting with the Rockets allude to that Howard asked Houston to try and add another max-contract player for him to play with, other than James Harden, which sounds like a weird request, and quite difficult to manage, unless that Jeremy Lin-Omer Asik trade can be pulled of to acquire a star, using both of them in the same trade.
And of course, the entire offer from the Warriors, deciding to ignore the warning signs on Howard, hinges on the Los Angeles Lakers actually wanting to give up and allow a sign & trade deal to happen. Up until now, the voices we’ve heard from the Lakers said that they’d rather have Howard leave for free that do a sign & trade that piles on more expensive contracts, but the Bogut + Jefferson or Bierdins deal would mean only one year of putting up with no hope of achieving much before seeing almost $100 million clear up from their cap space in 2014.