By Austin King
Magic center Dwight Howard should leave Orlando when his contract expires after the 2011-2012 season.
Who would blame him?
Howard has been eligible to sign a two-year extension with the organization since last June but continues to deflect any questions about his impending free agency. If he does end up leaving, the city only has poor team management to blame.
Just one month into the regular season, Magic General Manager Otis Smith executed two trades that sent four players packing – all of whom played key roles in an Eastern Conference Finals run last season.
Mikael Peitrus, Vince Carter and Marcin Gortat were traded to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Jason Richardson and Earl Clark. Rashard Lewis was traded to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Gilbert Arenas. The results of this early season panic – a possible first round flameout.
This isn’t the first move by Orlando management that has backfired though. Two years ago, after an improbable run to the NBA Finals earned Orlando its first ever Finals win, Otis Smith panicked.
In the offseason, fourth quarter star and pick-and-roll aficionado Hedo Turkoglu was up for a new contract. Re-signing a key component to an NBA Finals run seemed a foregone conclusion, but Smith had other plans. The Magic sent Turkoglu’s agent an offer well below his value, which all but sealed his departure.
So, for those keeping track at home, the Magic were, at this point, minus-one from a team three wins away from a world championship. Smith wasn’t done destroying the Finals team just yet though.
Just hours before the 2009 NBA Draft, the Magic traded away starting point guard Rafer Alston, starting shooting guard Courtney Lee and power forward Tony Battie for a washed up Vince Carter and a prospect in Ryan Anderson. The complete destruction of a team only three wins away from a world championship was complete.
Out of the quagmire that was the 2009 offseason, Orlando managed to bring in one player that actually made the team better, small forward Matt Barnes. Of course, that didn’t last long either. Barnes had a player-option on the second year of his contract and was seeking a pay increase. The Magic lost him to the Los Angeles Lakers in the offseason.
Smith didn’t think defense was worth a few extra dollars, but could give a spot-up three point shooter six years, and 110 million? Dwight Howard deserves a team that can make somewhat logical decisions. If he can find a team that knows how to build around a star center, he shouldn’t hesitate to leave. He doesn’t owe the fans in Orlando anything more than he’s given, and it says nothing about his legacy.
When the draft gets you a player worthy of the “Superman” moniker, you can’t have his kryptonite be your GM.
Counterpoint:
By Jay McQuade
The Orlando Magic came into this year’s playoff as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference Championship. Come to think of it, the Magic have had a lot of success over the last few years. A team with this much success usually has a dominating player leading the way.
Dwight Howard, the unofficial team captain of the Magic and the face of the franchise, has been the reason for the team’s recent success. Having won division titles to appearing in the NBA Finals in 2009, Howard has been the main man and the poster child for this organization. Also appearing in every All-Star Game since 2007 and winning every NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award since 2009, he’s become the greatest player in franchise history.
It was reported earlier this year that the star himself was no longer interested in staying in Orlando. For reasons unknown, it appeared that the face of the franchise grew tired of playing for the Magic. What could lead Dwight Howard to wanting to leave the organization that he put on the map? It might be because they never won the big one while he was there.
Like his fellow NBA Superstar LeBron James, he feels like he can’t accomplish his goal of playing for a winning team because his team is holding him down. James left Cleveland, his home town team, to join two other superstars on the Miami Heat. He did this because he thought it was the only way he would ever get to play for a championship-winning team.
So according to LeBron James, and now apparently Dwight Howard, they have to play with other great talents in order to accomplish their goal. That to me seems cheap. Abandoning the team that made you a star so you can feel like a winner is a petty way to reach your dream.
So where do the fans stand on this? Why is it that Dwight Howard, who apparently wants to leave their team, doesn’t get a negative reaction from the crowd? The fans in this case are blind. There’s no reason for the Magic fans to embrace Howard with open arms if he’s just going to abandon them.
The Magic fans by this point are in need to wake up and see that he doesn’t care about them, but they don’t want to. There are still huge crowds at Magic games and a sea of Dwight Howard #12 jerseys. His name and face remains everywhere that the Orlando Magic are mentioned, for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
If Howard wants to do what’s right, he’ll stay in Orlando, shut his mouth forever, and live with the mess he made. LeBron James is a scared coward, which is why he left Cleveland; Dwight Howard should be smart enough to comprehend this.