The Dwight Howard drama in Orlando is finally, mercifully over, with the much-vilified big man being sent to the Los Angeles Lakers in a complicated four-team trade. Rather than taking up paragraph after paragraph attempting to describe who went where as clearly as possible, I made it easy for my readers by developing the following visual breakdown:
As most of my followers are in or have ties to Los Angeles, I'll start with how the Lake Show came out in this deal first. For starters, a healthy Dwight Howard offers a dramatic upgrade defensively and is a more reliable contributor on a nightly basis than Andrew Bynum had been with the team. While Bynum may have a better offensive skill set, Howard won't be counted upon as much for his offense, as the Lakers will also have Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and Steve Nash to handle the bulk of the scoring. Christian Eyenga is a nice developmental small forward, but wouldn't have won a spot on the team out of camp, while Josh McRoberts's backup forward role can be filled by the incoming Earl Clark. The addition of Chris Duhon, also gives the Lakers a good backup point guard option to compete against Steve Blake.
For the 76ers, they lose an All-Star and Olympic-quality player in Andre Iguodala, but with Evan Turner already in place and Jason Richardson arriving in the trade, reasonable replacements are in place. Meanwhile, the addition of Bynum, who lives just an hour away and will likely remain with the Sixers long-term, offers a dramatic upgrade over Nikola Vucevic and the other centers the team had in place. With this team likely becoming a perennial contender in the East, Moe Harkless and a future first-round pick were an easy throw-in to bring in a potential face of the franchise in Bynum.
As far as Denver is concerned, they bring in a great defender and dependable scorer in Iguodala by dealing from positions of depth with Arron Afflalo and Al Harrington. The Nuggets have one of the deepest teams in the league and both Afflalo and Harrington had down years last season, thus making them more expendable.
Finally, the Magic rid themselves of the Howard headache and clear the bad contract of Richardson off their books, while receiving a large group of solid players looking to prove themselves on what will most certainly be a bad team looking to earn a high lottery pick next offseason. With the 76ers, Lakers, and Nuggets all being playoff teams, it's highly unlikely the future first-round picks they will be receiving will ever be high on the draft board, so it will take some clever drafting or trading of the picks by new GM Rob Hennigan to turn them into a potential franchise type player.
Unless Hennigan has something left up his sleeve, it appears that Orlando is the only loser in this trade, with the Lakers, Sixers, and Nuggets all receiving at least one piece that pushes them closer to a championship.
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