After appearing on a Houston radio station Monday, Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace seemed determined, and yet very sure, that he won't allow teammate Dwight Howard leave for the Houston Rockets during his upcoming free agency.
When asked about Howard's plans this off-season, World Peace quickly dismissed any possibilities of Howard leaving for Houston.
"Well, he's not going to Houston. I'll tell you that."
However, after having some time to bring himself to calm himself down, World Peace discussed what his plans were to keep Howard in a Lakers uniform:
"Well you know what? I'm not going to try and convince him but definitely, I enjoy him. No question about it. He's a great person. Whoever receives Dwight Howard... they are going to enjoy their time with him. Hopefully, it's the Lakers"
Houston plans to offer a sign-and-trade to the Lakers which will ship Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin to Los Angeles in exchange for Howard.
The Rockets will have the cap space to sign Howard outright after the expected shedding of Thomas Robinson's contract, but sources say that the Rockets will certainly attempt to convince the Lakers to take in return Asik and Lin in a sign-and-trade deal for Howard, thus theoretically keeping alive the possibility that Houston could preserve its cap space to pursue Chris Paul and possibly pair Howard with Paul.
As of now, the Lakers have plenty of cap space for the summer of 2014, but can see all that change should they take in multiple large contracts in a sign-and-trade for Howard.
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