Over the past few days the Los Angeles Clippers have been aggressive in their attempt to re-sign perennial All-Star guard Chris Paul to a long-term deal, using Lakers' center Dwight Howard as the bait on the hook.
Over the past 48 hours, the Clippers have been extremely persistent in their pursuit of a blockbuster deal that may very well convince Paul that the team is dedicated to winning ASAP. Over the weekend the Clippers were trying to pull off a deal that would bring coach Doc Rivers and future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett in exchange for draft picks, Eric Bledsoe and DeAndre Jordan.
As that was going on, the Clippers also expressed a strong interest in acquiring Howard in a sign-and-trade with the Lakers.
The problem with that is that the Lakers have no intentions of doing a sign-and-trade with another team within their same division.
At this point, though the Clippers are determined to get a deal done before the start of free agency, Howard is likely not in the equation.
With the Clippers out of the "Dwightmare" sweep stakes, the threat of the Houston Rockets signing Howard away from the Lakers is still very real.
According to ESPN, 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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