Howard would be a huge upgrade over all our bigs. If he is healthy (assuming the C's would get a physical before doing the deal), he could take our defense to historic levels.
The collective effort of the team would keep him from slipping effort wise.
At that price it makes sense to do a deal.
Even if he's going to walk at the end of the season?
Does it even matter?
This season having him on the roster makes us an almost certain top 3 seed and an outside shot at making the Eastern Conference Finals. Even as we are, we'd be a really tough out for Toronto in a 7 game series. With Dwight, we've got a very real chance of winning that series. This makes us a very appealing free agent spot.
If he walks after the season then then his not insubstantial $22M comes off the books and we go into free agency coming off a strong season, Brad Stevens and enough money to easily sign two max players - should draw some attention for any free agent thinking about a change in scenery.
If he takes up his player option, then we go into free agency with the space to sign a max contract player, and the lure of being one star away from a very serious contender.
I don't think it's a deal we can really lose from. Worst case we pretty much end up no better off (and no worse off, really) then where we already are. Best case, we could be playing Cleveland or Toronto in the ECF.
It matters to me because every free agent this summer is going to have crazy-big offers from half of the teams in the league. It would be really easy to go into free agency with a ton of money and come out with nothing to show for it which would mean we let some mid-1st rounders go for 4 months of Dwight Howard.
I'd love to have Dwight Howard for the rest of the season but beyond that, I don't care to have the worst contract in the league on the Celtics' books in 2 years.
The top free agents in 2016 (aside from Dwight) are:
* Kevin Durant
* Lebron James (player option)
* Andre Drummond (restricted)
* Demar Derozan (player option)
* Mike Conley
* Al Horford
* Dwyane Wade
* Tim Duncan (player option)
* Dirk Nowitzki (player option)
* Nicholas Batum
* Bradley Beal (restricted)
* Chandler Parsons (player option)
* Harrison Barnes (restricted)
* Pau Gasol (player option)
* Eric Gordon
Now:
1) We know almost for certain that Lebron, Wade, Duncan, Nowitzki aren't going anywhere
2) We know almost certainly that Detroit (Drummond) and Washington (Beal) will match all offers
3) There is close to zero change that Durant will sign in Boston
That leaves:
* Demar Derozan (player option)
* Mike Conley
* Al Horford
* Nicholas Batum
* Chandler Parsons (player option)
* Harrison Barnes (restricted)
* Pau Gasol (player option)
* Eric Gordon
I have read that we look to have about $30M in cap space committed come the offseason, which (given the cap rise to $90m or so) would leave us with about $60M in cap space.
Even if we have Dwight on the cap, that still leaves us with $40M in cap space, meaning we can keep him and STILL easily add a guy like Derozan, Batum, or Horford...which makes us a contender instantly.
If he declines his option it leaves us with more like $60M in space - even more flexiblity to sign multiple of those guys if we want to - Derozan AND Horford would be nice.
Either way, as long as we don't give up our core pieces (Thomas, Bradley, Crowder, Olynyk, Brooklyn 1st) none of the players we give up are going to come back to haunt us. We're still in an outstanding position in free agency and in the future.
Dwight Howard should have enough in the tank (at 30 years of age) to still be a highly effective starting big man until he hits around the 33-34 year old mark. Even if he can no longer carry an offense, he will remain a monster on the boards, a high impact defensive player and a good finisher around the basket for years.
If we have Dwight on a max contract two years from now, then (relative to the cap) he'll be making about the same amount of money as KG was as a not-so-healthy 33 year old in 2009-10, when he was averaging 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 0.8 blocks while shooting 52%.
By that point KG was a shadow of the 24/14 guy he was in Minnesota and was no longer dominant enough to carry a team on offense, but he was still a very valuable player who had a huge impact on our ability to win games - especially with the impact he had on defense and on the boards.
I don't think it's hard to foresee Dwight having a very similar path with us if we extended him. I could very easily see him still having a major impact on this team 3 years down the track when that contract extension expires.
Will he still be putting up max contract numbers at that age? No, not likely. But then neither was KG - yet this team would have been mediocre without him.
If we let a bunch of mid first rounders go for four months of Dwight Howard then so be it - it really doesn't concern me. We aren't likely to use those picks for much else, and the reduced value of draft picks in general means we're not likely to get much back for them in a trade either.
Fact is that four months of Dwight Howard might well be the best we will get from those picks. If we can't make any other worthwhile trade happen, then I'd rather get 4 months of dwight for those picks rather than draft another handful of late first rounders to send down to the Red Claws.