Now that the NBA summer and free agency period are starting to die down and training camps are coming up around the corner, it's always interesting to speculate how things may have turned out if the summer went differently and Bleacher Report did just that with Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers.
The interesting article debates what would have played out if Howard opted to stay with the Los Angeles Lakers rather than sign with the Houston Rockets. According to the article, the main points include that Phil Jackson likely would be implemented as coach for Mike D'Antoni, while the team also would have gotten rid of Kobe Bryant at some point and also would have signed or at least tried to sign Josh Smith. All of this is speculative anyway, but it's hard to see the Lakers getting rid of Kobe no matter how much he played.
But just for fun, if Howard stayed, what would the Lakers look like?
Things clearly did not work out last year for Howard and whether it was injuries, being healthy, D'Antoni's system or playing with Kobe, everything added up to a disaster, but as Howard showed, he is still one of the best talents in the NBA. If Howard stayed, the team likely would not have signed Chris Kaman, but the roster would look pretty solid with Bryant, Steve Nash, Pau Gasol, Wes Johnson, Nick Young and Elias Harris as well as Jordan Farmar and while that might not be a championship team, it's one that could have contended in the West.
Howard and Gasol did not fit, but if Jackson was brought in as coach, everything could have been different. Bleacher writes that Gasol likely would have been traded if Howard stayed, but Jackson would have worked with both players. Reports said that Howard wanted Jackson as the coach and while that might have been tough after going through Mike Brown as well, Jackson coming back would be nothing new. The article posits that Gasol would have likely moved and Jackson would be able to take control better than D'Antoni has done.
The Smith things makes sense since Bryant's contract is so big and ditching it would open up some flexibility, but no matter what, the Lakers wouldn't do that to Kobe, so there's no way this would have went down. Smith signed a four year, $54 million deal with the Pistons and it is unlikely that number would fit with the Lakers, but if they really wanted another star they could have made it happen.
The Lakers got swept out in the playoffs after Kobe went down with his Achilles injury and Dwight was so quick to leave LA that it felt like he never gave it a chance. Now that he is gone, the Buss family is sniping at him that he wasn't a real Laker and while he wasn't, he definitely could have made it work in LA if he wanted to, but clearly he did not. The Lakers now are in a slight rebuilding mode as they bring Kobe back and depending on what happens this season, the future could be very interesting for the Lakers.
