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  • Dwight Howard, Chris Paul reportedly texting about teaming up, which is unlikely

    We're still a little over two weeks away from the start of NBA free agency, but the stove's already begun to heat up when it comes to the eventual destinations of the two most coveted players on the market this summer, Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard and Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul.

    Like All-NBA pals LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh before them, the two friends and All-Stars have chatted in the past about joining forces upon hitting free agency, but for a variety of reasons — Howard didn't want to join Paul's New Orleans Hornets, Paul didn't want to come to Howard's Orlando Magic, Howard wouldn't commit to eventually joining Mark Cuban's Dallas Mavericks and Paul balked at going to Texas without assurances of Howard's eventual presence, etc. — the link-up never took place. Now, with both players facing unrestricted free agency come July 1, they've apparently resumed the Marvel Team-Up discussion.

    ESPN.com's Chris Broussard cites sources who say Howard and Paul "have been in consistent contact recently about the possibility of becoming teammates next season," exchanging text messages about the prospect of joining forces as free agents:

    "They would love to play together if somebody can make it happen," one of the sources said.

    The Atlanta Hawks could make it happen. Atlanta, which is Howard's hometown, has the cap room to sign both players to maximum-salaried contracts.

    Let's stop there: This isn't true. It could be, given some elbow grease and wrangling, but strictly speaking, it isn't. Grab your calculators, kids — we're about to get nerdy, with some help from salary cap wizards Larry Coon and Mark Deeks.

    While the Hawks would clearly love to have both Howard and Paul on board and have only $22.5 million in guaranteed contracts on the books for next season, cap holds for the team's potential free agents — including Josh Smith, Jeff Teague, Devin Harris, Kyle Korver, Zaza Pachulia, Ivan Johnson and a host of others — gobble up large chunks of that room. So what appears to be about $36 million in salary cap space is actually quite a bit less.

    Smith's nine-year veteran maximum cap hold would disappear upon signing with another team. But in order for Atlanta to get far enough under the cap to be able to make the two prospective max offers, they'd have to renounce their rights to all of those pending free agents (including restricted free agent Teague) and waive the non-guaranteed contracts of DeShawn Stevenson, Shelvin Mack and Mike Scott ... and that still wouldn't be quite enough.

    Atlanta would also have to carve out more room in some combination of moves with their remaining existing non-Al Horford assets — rehabilitating guard Lou Williams, who's set to make $5.23 million next year; rising sophomore guard John Jenkins, owed $1.26 million for '13-'14 on his rookie deal; their two first-round picks in the 2013 NBA draft — to get far enough under the cap to offer max-level deals to Howard, a nine-year veteran whose full max would pay him just over $20.5 million next year, and Paul, an eight-year vet whose full max will start at $18.7 million.

    In sum: In order for Atlanta to actually realize its maximum possible cap room, Ferry would have to get rid of everyone on the Hawks roster except Horford plus what ESPN Insider Kevin Pelton projects would be Jenkins and one of their two first-rounders.

    From there, he'd have to convince Howard to get past "not [being] particularly fond of the idea of returning to" his hometown of Atlanta and convince Paul to get past the Hawks choosing Marvin Williams over him in the 2005 draft (which is something Hawks fans, understandably, have not gotten over themselves). But that's language arts rather than math — just in terms of number-crunching, there are a quite a few hoops to jump through before CP3 and Dwight wind up wearing Hawks uniforms.

    And, as Pelton notes, Atlanta's "far and away the most realistic situation" for the pairing ... even if it's not where the dynamic theoretical duo would like to team up, if they had their druthers. More from Broussard:

    The preference for both players would be to play together for the Clippers, according to the sources. Because the Clippers don't have enough cap room to sign Howard as a free agent, it would take a sign-and-trade deal with the Lakers to make it happen.

    And that's unlikely to happen because the Lakers, with $79.6 million in salary already committed for next season without a new deal for Howard, are over what's referred to in the collective bargaining agreement as "the apron" — the mark $4 million above the luxury tax line. One of the restrictions put in place for free-spending teams that go above "the apron" is that they can't take receive a player in a sign-and-trade unless the deal winds up bringing their cap number down below the apron, which, with the luxury tax line projected to fall at $71.6 million next year, would slot in at $75.6 million.

    So in order for the Lakers to be part of such a deal, they'd have to wind ways to shed even more payroll in the process in addition to losing their starting center without being able to bring back comparably high-priced assets — while the spitballed Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe package Broussard mentions is attractive from a talent perspective, that pair's owed more than $16 million for next year, which doesn't help with apron-tanking. And they'd have to do it all for the privilege of allowing the guy they've repeatedly prioritized as the next face of the franchise to walk across the hall and play for their neighbors in their gym. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen, either.

    Again, it's not impossible that Howard and Paul could wind up wearing the same uniform next season — if some executive (most likely Ferry, or perhaps Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who's apparently got a swingman who's tight with Howard) is willing to wheel, deal, slash, burn, beg, borrow and steal his way through the roster contortions necessary to create enough space to be able to offer the two All-Stars max deals, or is able to convince both of them to take less than the max to join up, then it could happen. It's just that it's much more likely that the only time they'd wear the same colors would be by making another trip to the All-Star Game to play for the West after Paul re-ups with the Clips and Dwight takes that extra $30-plus million to stay with the Lakers.

    Besides, all the extra bread they'll make by staying separated can pay for, like, 100 cell contracts with unlimited text plans. Then they can talk about whatever they want, whenever they want. (Dwight only wants to talk about "Man of Steel," though.)

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    • Judge says Michael Jordan's $5M lawsuit is 'greedy'

  • Chandler Parsons talks to Dwight Howard ‘a lot,’ thinks his Rockets can sign him, isn’t tampering

    The Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento Kings were all recently fined by the NBA for tampering. Various outlets under each team’s umbrella (a ticket promoter, a team website, the new coach of your Sacramento Kings) mentioned upcoming free agents Dwight Howard and Chris Paul in innocuous, but still understandably penalty-worthy incidents. The NBA can’t have teams discussing players on other teams, because until July 1, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul are still technically members of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Clippers. They still have two more checks coming their way.

    NBA players, however, can say whatever the heck they want, to whoever will listen. They can talk up opposing players as potential free agent targets to any media source available without risking a fine from the NBA. Heck, they can even text a player endlessly, or camp out at the dude’s house so as to beat their own general manager to the punch once July 1 rolls around.

    This is what Houston Rockets forward Chandler Parsons, a Florida native and buddy of Dwight Howard’s, seems inching toward. Here are some quotes from his appearance on CBS Sports’ ROME on Thursday, as lovingly transcribed by ClutchFans, starting with his reaction to Jim Rome asking if he thinks the Rockets have “a shot at” acquiring Dwight Howard as a free agent:

    “I think so,” said Parsons. “I’m good friends with Dwight and we talk. When he’s healthy and when he’s playing, he’s the best center in the NBA.”

    Parsons and Howard developed a relationship back in Orlando, Chandler’s hometown and the city where Dwight played for the Magic for eight seasons. Chandler added that he talks to Dwight “a lot” and that started even before this recruiting process began.

    “I remind him how good we could be together and how it would be fun to play with him and what he could do with our nucleus,” said Parsons.

    […]

    “It’s a decision (Dwight) has to make and he’s got a lot to think about,” said Parsons. “But I don’t see why he wouldn’t pick Houston with the excitement we got down there. We got a young team.”

    I wouldn’t call what Parsons said “brazen,” but in light of the recent fines, it is a little strange to see a player so outwardly talking up a player on another team.

    The Hawks were censured for sending out a ticket advertisement that sold fans on the idea that the Hawks could have Howard and/or Paul on their team next season, which is both inaccurate and misleading, and probably the most grievous misdeed as the Hawks would be taking money from ticket buyers inspired by this premise weeks before they could speak to either player. The Rockets mentioned both players on their website, ho hum, and rookie Sacramento Kings coach Mike Malone was fined for saying this at his introductory press conference:

    “Obviously, Chris would look pretty good in a Sacramento Kings uniform without a doubt,” Malone said with a smile yesterday when asked if he could use his clout with Paul to convince the superstar to consider the Kings come free agency. ”But he’s a great friend, somebody I had a great relationship with in New Orleans. We stay in touch.

    “He’s got a lot of his own things going on right now,” Malone added. ”And as I told him recently, I care about him, I hope he’s okay and whatever decision he makes is best for him and his family, I’ll always be rooting for him.”

    The “recently” bit probably did Malone in, as he would have been working as a Golden State Warriors assistant coach at the time.

    Parsons can say whatever he wants to Jim Rome on ROME (full disclosure, I appeared on the show five times last year and Jim and his staff were wonderful, even providing me with delicious unsweetened iced tea), though, and this is probably for the best. Players don’t sign other players, and the NBA would have to go to illegal NSA-level lengths to suss out any form of pre-free agency period communication. Stu Jackson can’t really start reading the private Twitter direct messages of NBA players. We don’t blame the guy for not wanting to.

    And if Parsons (who will make just under $2.8 million between 2012 and 2015, easily the biggest bargain contract in the NBA) does manage to sway Dwight, offering his favorite candies and really nice texts? Rockets GM Daryl Morey better put pen to paper for a massive extension for Chandler as soon as Dwight’s paperwork goes through.

    Oh, wait. That’d be tampering. Never mind.

    Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
    • Tony Parker hopes to be '100 percent' for Game 5 of NBA Finals
    • Chris Bosh fined $5K for flopping
    • Andre Iguodala to opt for free agency
    • Judge says Michael Jordan's $5M lawsuit is 'greedy'

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