Kobe Bryant Will Lead Los Angeles Lakers Pitch to Dwight Howard
By Josh Hill
The Dwight Howard sweepstakes has once again begun. As if we didn’t go through enough of this last offseason, the Los Angeles Lakers are going to try and lead the pack when it comes to landing the services of Dwight Howard, only this time they can approach his acquisition as a sales pitch rather than a trade proposal. According to Yahoo! Sports, Kobe Bryant will lead the Lakers
pitch
plea to Dwight Howard in an effort to get him to sign with the team.
"Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant plans to be part of the presentation on Tuesday to convince free-agent center Dwight Howard to re-sign with the franchise, a league source told Yahoo! Sports."
Bryant seems like he’ll be key in bringing Howard back as of all the teams trying to throw together sales pitches to the big man, there is no voice more powerful than that of Kobe Bryant. Other teams can sell money and the chance at a title, Bryant can sell playing along side him, building the team around Howard taking over for him as the king of LA and can also offer him more money than any of the other teams in the running.
The Lakers can offer Howard $117 million on July 1st but the difference is re-signing with the Lakers means he’ll be locked into a five year contract as opposed to a four year deal with the Mavericks, Clippers, Warriors or Rockets. TO compare, the Rockets have the next leading offer with $88 million over four years.
It will be interesting to see what Howard ends up doing but you have to believe that the Lakers have a better chance than they’re being given by critics. Bryant has the easiest pitch to make as he only has to convince Howard that one more year on a contract isn’t a big deal and that he’ll be able to do this all over again in 2018 when he’s still young enough for another big deal.