Should Dwight Howard Return To The Lakers?

In the third quarter of game 4 in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs against the San Antonio Spurs, Dwight Howard was ejected after he was assessed his second technical foul. With the Lakers down 0-3 in the series and down 55-34, the last thing Laker fans wanted to see was Howard removed from the game. Combining anger and dissapointment, Dwight walked off the Staples Center floor and into the locker room, rubbing salt in to the wound of an already miserable appearance in the playoffs. With the Spurs going on to sweep the Lakers, one question arises in everybody’s mind: Will Superman be wearing purple and gold next year?

Travel way back to last summer. On June 11th, Steve Nash signed with L.A. to replace long time point guard Derek Fisher. As if that weren’t big enough for Los Angeles, the Lakers landed Dwight Howard in a blockbuster deal with 2 other teams that brought Dwight to L.A., and sent Andrew Bynum packing for Philadelphia. With the immediate addition of Howard, the Lakers emerged on the scene as the new kids on the block, ready to challenge Miami in the finals. With hopes to the moon and back, it seemed as if the Lakers were going to shine with no problems. But as everybody would soon see, the game isn’t played on paper.

With a injured Steve Nash and a rocky 1-4 start, coach Mike Brown was fired. With big names floating around on who will next coach L.A., Phil Jackson was asserted as a favorite by practically every member of the media. Even meeting with the team, Jackson, who has won 11 NBA championship rings, was denied the job in favor of Mike D’Antoni. With a high offensive IQ, it was no secret that the main weakness of every D’Antoni team was defense. With the Princeton offense thrown away, the expectations on the offensive side for coach D’Antoni were sky high with scoring machines like Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, the woes continued as L.A. became 15-16 after a loss on New Years Day. With Dwight averaging 17.1 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, the under achieving part of his play was the 3.2 turnovers a game, and only shooting 50.4% from the free throw line. Visably frustrated with not getting the ball enough, Howard was used to having the game plan built around him and being the main threat against opponents. Now that he was sharing the ball with 2 other all stars, Dwight Howard needed to adjust, and adjust quickly.

Although coming off back surgery from last season, Howard’s play began to pick up as the playoffs grew nearer and nearer. With the Lakers climbing their way out of the depths of the Western Conference, they secured a spot in the playoffs and would face San Antonio. However Kobe Bryant went down with what would be announced as a torn Achilles tendon, with just 2 games to go. With everybody questioning on how the series would play out, it was ultimately up to Dwight Howard to put the team on his back and carry them to victory. But the series was cut short to 4 games, and now LA sits at home watching the playoffs like the rest of us. Now the question arises: Should Dwight return to Los Angeles?

With intentions of winning a ring in L.A., Howard obviously did not do so this year. “I’m going to sit back and take my time” Howard stated after game 4. Dwight then took to twitter to apologize to all fans for his actions, and even hinted at a possible comeback. (See tweets at his account @DwightHoward on twitter.) With a maximum of $118 million over 5 years earning potential with Los Angeles, the biggest rival seems to be Houston. However the most any team can offer Dwight is $88 million over four years. With everything revolving around money now-a-days, conventional wisdom would say he signs back with the Lakers. That being said, nobody actually knows what he’ll do just yet. Here’s to round two of another crazy year for Dwight Howard.

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New York Knicks Sign Kenyon Martin, Trade Ronnie Brewer to Thunder

The New York Knicks had a busy NBA trade deadline, they traded away shooting guard Ronnie Brewer and signed Power Forward Kenyon Martin to a 10 day contract. The Knicks have recently slipped to the third seed in the eastern conference with a record of 32-20, the Knicks have gone 5-5 in their last 10 games and have lost four games in a row.

Ronnie Brewer has not done much on the offensive end for the Knicks averaging only 3.6 points per game and shooting 36% from the field, 31% from 3 and surprisingly 41% from the free throw line. Ronnie Brewer does not really bring offense to the table but what he does bring is defense and he is very good at it.

Kenyon Martin finally has found a home, for at least 10 days. Kenyon Martin had not signed with an NBA team this season because he was being stubborn wanting more money from teams. Hopefully, Kenyon has realize that no team will give him that money espically after the new CBA luxury tax. Last season with the Clippers Kenyon Martin averaged 5.2 points per game, 4.3 rebounds per game and shot 44% from the field in 22.4 minutes per game.

The Thunder traded a future second round pick to acquire Ronnie Brewer, that gave the Knicks room to sign Kenyon Martin.