LOS ANGELES — No strangers to stars and their issues, the Los Angeles Lakers landed Dwight Howard on Friday, ending his long search for a home, at least for another season.
Related
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On Pro Basketball: Lakers Again Land a Large Piece of the Puzzle (August 11, 2012)
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After asking the Orlando Magic
to trade him to the Nets last fall, reversing himself to opt in with
the Magic last spring, then again asking to be traded to the Nets even
after the Magic fired Coach Stan Van Gundy and forced General Manager
Otis Smith to resign, Howard finally got his wish to be dealt, if not to
his preferred team.
Instead, he went to the Lakers in a four-team, 12-player trade that sent
Lakers center Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia, 76ers guard Andre Iguodala
to Denver and six players and three No. 1 draft picks to Orlando.
Howard, a free agent next summer, gave the Lakers no assurance he would
re-sign and avoided the subject at Friday’s news conference at the
team’s practice facility.
“Right now, it’s about today, and today is the day that I’m here with
the Lakers, and that’s the only thing that matters,” Howard said.
“Whatever happens a year from now, we’ll wait until that time, but right
now it’s all about me starting fresh.”
If he said the same thing in Orlando last season, except for the part
about starting fresh, the Lakers are counting on the new rules that
allow teams to offer 20 percent more to keep their players.
The 76ers took Bynum, whose contract is also expiring, on the same assumption.
Howard’s arrival in Los Angeles was the culmination of 10 months of
twists and turns that began last fall, when Orlando still hoped to win
him back. Then came his decision to opt-in on his contract in the
spring, followed by July’s breakdown of trade talks with the Nets (who
re-signed Brook Lopez, making him ineligible to be traded until
January), before the Magic, finally bent on ending the soap opera, found
trading partners who would take both Howard and Bynum with no long-term
commitment.
Howard’s happy-go-lucky image took a beating in the process, leaving him
disinclined to discuss it. “For me, I want to be a great leader,”
Howard said, “and I have an opportunity to learn from the best in Kobe
on how to lead a team.
“In order to be a great leader, you have to learn how to follow.”
Howard also said he wants to learn from Steve Nash, Pau Gasol “and the guys who have been here.”
Howard was also disinclined to discuss his yearlong effort to join the
Nets. “Right now, it’s all about the Lakers,” he said. “I’m here now.
It’s not about any other team.”
The newest incarnation of the Lakers seems like a logical successor to a
team that has always been fueled by star power, from the misadventures
of the Wilt Chamberlain-Jerry West-Elgin Baylor team to the legendary
Showtime era of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy to
the more recent feud- and title-filled run starring Shaquille O’Neal and
Bryant.
Howard has seemed disinclined to follow the career path of O’Neal, who
bolted Orlando for Los Angeles (and Hollywood) as a free agent, and
there are fears his offensive statistics could suffer in the Lakers’
attack, but his game seems to fit neatly with those of Bryant, a
do-everything perimeter player, and Nash, a crack-shooting,
floor-spacing playmaker.
In that, the new Lakers look more like the ultra-complementary Celtics
Big Three of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen than the awkward
juxtaposition of the aging Chamberlain, West and Baylor in the 1960s and
’70s.
“I think they will be real good,” said Donnie Walsh, the Indiana Pacers’
newly rehired president, from Indianapolis. “Dwight will give Kobe a
lot of freedom defensively. And on offense, you’ve got this monster
lurking under the basket the defense has to pay attention to.
“Nash gets shots for everybody he plays with, and they’ve still got Gasol down there.”
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