I can guarantee that Cuban would jump at Howard, the same way he salivated at the thought of snagging one of the premier free agents of last summer. Chandler has done wonders for the Mavs but Howard is a clear upgrade, and Cuban is a businessman. He won’t turn down a chance to improve even if he does give Chandler an extension. After all, Chandler with a longterm extension is not all that different in trade talks than Noah, and according to your reasoning Noah isn’t keeping Chicago out of the mix.

As for NJ, Howard has repeatedly said he wants a team to be ‘his’ and Derron isn’t charismatic enough to stop Howard from making the Nets his team. Also, a team with Howard and Williams on it trumps a mello/amare team for on court performance. Off court publicity and drama? The Knicks can take that, Howard is more interested in a functional team than theatrics.

Carry on.

By all reports, Mark Cuban is going to commit big bucks to a contract extension for Tyson Chandler; that would rule out making a big run at Howard, and Dallas has a much bigger need in finding a player to replace Bibby at point guard.

New Jersey? Why would ANYONE actually want to go to the cesspool that is Newark, NJ? Yes, the plans to move to Brooklyn are apparently still in place, but until a new arena is actually built there, that’s all they are… plans.

If Howard doesn’t like being the second banana in Florida, why would he want to wind up right back in the same spot to Mello, Amarie and the Knicks in New York. I’ve been to both the Garden and to Brooklyn and trust me, while Brooklyn may be a borough in New York City, it AIN’T New York City any more than Sacramento (which is only a 2 hour drive), is San Francisco.

Of all the big market contending teams, the Bulls hands down have the most to offer for Howard. The only question in my mind is if Howard is bearing a lot of resentment towards Rose over this years MVP selection.

The Lakers though are out not only because their President (Jim Buss), has labeled Bynum as “untouchable”, but also because it’s clear that their window with their current aging roster and lack of high present and near term lottery draft picks would make that a bad career move for Howard IMO. Hiring Brown as their head coach certainly doesn’t make them any more of an attractive place to go either.

I mean, they can offer Noah, a young big guy in Asik/Gibson, maybe a bench player or 2, and 3 first round picks right? And Howard could at least partially cover for Boozer’s lack of defense?

Then if they can trade/sign a real SG (maybe Mayo?) and have a starting lineup of Rose/Deng/SG/Boozer/Howard I think they could easily beat the Heat

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Like most of what Moore writes about the Lakers, this is based on angry little voices in his head. JA Adande, for example, reported that he was told several different things about where Howard wants to go by several different sources. There has been spec about Howard to LA, Howard to NJ/BKN, Howard to Chicago, Howard to Dallas, Howard to New York, and about Howard staying in Orlando if the Magic can bring in Chris Paul. There has been no definitive report saying what Howard wants to do nor any quotes from Howard himself on the subject.

Also, there have been several reports the last few days saying that Jim Buss has said Bynum is “untouchable” which triggered Bucher’s answer in chat. Bucher gave no specifics as to why LA is now “down the list.”

As to the first post talking about Kobe being “broken” scaring Howard off of LA, seems unlikely. More likely, if Bucher’s info is accurate, it is the Jim Buss/Brown regime taking over and the hard cap that seems to be coming.