Brooklyn Nets opt out of the Dwight Howard race; Re-sign Brook Lopez – NBA News
The Brooklyn Nets and the Orlando Magic attempted to strike a deal involving Dwight Howard one last time, but after talks broke down for that too, the Nets have decided to move on.
The Nets officially opted out of the race to land All Star centre when they agreed to a four year $60 million max deal with free agent canter Brook Lopez, who played for the Nets last season as well.
The Nets were willing to offer four future first round picks, Brook Lopez and Kris Humphries, and $3 million in exchange for Dwight Howard, Jason Richardson, Chris Duhon and Earl Clark. However, the Magic refused the offer as they did not want to sign Kris Humphries and also wanted the Nets to pick up Quentin Richardson.
Since the Nets could not find a third team to take Humphries and complete the deal, they decided to move on and signed Lopez.
"We've moved on. It just got to a point where we couldn't keep going back and forth with Orlando. They had about 14 days to do something and didn't. We just had to move on, and we felt that way this morning," a source with the Nets told ESPNNewYork.com’s Ian O’Connor.
The source also informed that Lopez had offers from two teams and would have signed with them if the Nets had not made their move. The Portland Trail Blazers and the Charlotte Bobcats had informed Lopez’s representatives that they were willing to offer him a four year max deal. Hence, it became important for the Nets to make their decision.
“Brook had two offer sheets [from Portland and Charlotte] and was about to sign one of them. We couldn't wait anymore," the Nets source told O'Connor.
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets had also joined the Dwight Howard trade party. The Rockets said that they were ready to deal with the Orlando Magic directly in order to acquire Howard, and were also ready to act as the third team in a three team trade that would send Howard to the Lakers and their centre Andrew Bynum to the Rockets.
The Magic still have options remaining on the table after the withdrawal of the Brooklyn Nets. Although the Nets were Howard’s preferred team, it was not binding on the Magic to trade him there. The Lakers and Rockets are still interested, and Orlando also has an offer from the Atlanta Hawks.
But with the moratorium already lifted, the Magic are in no hurry to finalize the deal, although they would want to get it done with sooner or later, definitely before the next season commences.
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