The Dwightmare

As you all may have noticed, our front page coverage at Clips Nation has covered all sorts of things- free agents, trades, the draft, the front office- basically everything major in the NBA this summer.

But the Dwightmare has been consistently absent from our features.

So many times have we heard that a trade is almost done, only for it to collapse. How many Nets trades? How many Rockets trades? The Clippers, the Cavs, the Bobcats, the Lakers. The Mavericks and Sixers and Nuggets and Blazers.

Ok, maybe I just put the Blazers in there to make it sound nice. Go ahead, say it out loud. I'll wait.

(waiting)

Anyways, today, Raffo and I conferred and decided, in spite of reports that Dwight Howard was traded to the Lakers, to not put this story on the front page, and let it wallow in the fanshots until something official came out. I assure you that this trade IS NOT DONE. There has been no confirmation from anyone who is willing to attach their names to it that these teams have loosely agreed on these terms.

Even ESPN's magic "unnamed sources" didn't claim to have confirmation that Orlando executives had agreed to the trade.

However, this is a blog, and a community. While there are only a few of us who confer about what the front page coverage will include, us few hold no power without the commenters- the lifeblood of the blog. So, when a fanshot gets 300 comments in four hours, I really have no choice but to accommodate the readers.

The reported trade is as follows:

Lakers get: Dwight Howard and Chris Duhon

76ers get: Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson

Nuggets get: Andre Iguodala

Magic get: Aaron Afflalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vujecic, Protected 1st (LAL), Protected 1st (PHI), Protected 1st (DEN), Moe Harkless

If I'm the Clippers, I'm making a call RIGHT NOW saying that I will give Orlando DeAndre Jordan, Eric Bledsoe, Caron Butler, 2013 first rounder, 2015 first rounder, 2017 first rounder, 2019 first rounder, and about 5 second rounders for Dwight Howard and Jason Richardson.

That's a better haul than Afflalo, Harrington's contract, Vujecic, and less picks.

WHY?