James Harden scored 25 points, and Dwight Howard added 16 points and 15 rebounds in the Houston Rockets’ second victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in six days, 107-87 on Thursday night.
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If the Rockets do in fact attempt to trade Howard by February’s deadline, the Miami Heat is their most likely trade partner. The season is still early, and thanks to the surprisingly bad records of a number of Western Conference teams, the Rockets hold the seventh seed in the West. But there is an element of fool’s gold to their record. Maybe one day the National Basketball Association will gravitate back to a game more contingent on great low post play, but for now, Howard is of a dying breed of true centers. So far, he has managed only 12.6 points and 8.3 shots per game, a big dip if you compare his performance for the past two seasons in Houston.
With 56 games remaining in the season, the hope is Kobe can sustain this level of play while the young core continues to develop.
This is all especially moot because Howard is nearly guaranteed to take his player option next summer and become a Dallas free agent target.
“I don’t know why – everybody just made it seem like we just hated each other”.
While Smith’s damning assessment of Howard’s production and effort is entirely justified, it’s hard to look at his fickle temperament and not wonder if he’d play harder/better outside the shadow of Adidas’ $200 million Kardashian accessory, James Harden.
For the short-term, head coach JB Bickerstaff is making it clear that Howard is not unhappy and his relationship with the team is just fine.
“The one thing I want Larry to do is get a little bit more aggressive offensively”, Scott said.
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“I think about it a lot, talk about it a lot”, Howard said about his time in Orlando. Reportedly on the table are Hassan Whiteside and rookie Justise Winslow. As Bryant rose, Houston Rockets power forward Clint Capela came over to protect the basket, but Bryant had already elevated past the point of no return. That means that any trade for Howard is nearly certainly going to require a size-for-size trade, as they can’t really afford to get smaller. Sending forward Luol Deng and center Chris Andersen straight up for him works given they have expiring contracts but it also clogs up the Miami front line. The only way the Heat would even consider this trade would be if they thought they could retain Howard but if they don’t have the money for Whiteside they likely won’t have the money for Howard either.
