As the Dwight Howard sweep stakes continues, the Dallas Mavericks are believed to be "strongly" thinking about trading their highest draft pick in more than a decade, with the hopes of stealing him from the Los Angeles Lakers.
According to Dallas Morning News, there is an 80-percent chance that the Mavericks 13th pick will be traded before or during the NBA Draft.
The way the Mavericks see it, the No. 13 pick would not be on their roster for next season, thus not counting against the Mavericks' salary cap, which would free up money for their pursuit of Howard and giving them the opportunity to offer a max deal.
The best case scenario for the Mavericks is that they'll land Howard for next season and have him playing alongside Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter and Shawn Marion as the team's core for the season. They would have only the $2.5-million exception plus veteran-minimum contracts left with which to build the rest of the roster, although they do plan on making a strong run at retaining Brandan Wright.
If they are successful in landing Howard, Nowitzki will take a massive pay cut next summer, which could free up enough money for another maximum-level free agent, giving Howard and the Mavericks a future to build upon.
As the Mavericks continue to up their efforts for Howard, the Houston Rockets plan 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.
This only adds fuel to the assumption that Howard won't be returning to the Lakers next season.
Howard's likely thinking about the future and signing with the Lakers will surely ensure another difficult season for Howard in the future. In the summer of 2014, while other stars will become free agents, the Lakers would only have Howard and Steve Nash under contract and will likely be in the process of rebuilding for the 2014-15 season.
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