The Lakers didn’t really need to find a replacement for DeMarcus Cousins as soon as possible. Even as the injury he suffered one and a half weeks ago came as a shocker and threw their best-laid plans to the bin, they could have waited for better alternatives than the veritable retreads who came knocking on their door. After all, there’s still half a year before the trade deadline; they can conceivably use the time to look at fillers, better options from the buyout market, or even unique combinations of players already on the roster.
Nonetheless, the Lakers went to work as soon as news of Cousins tearing the anterior cruciate ligament on his left knee reached them. Clearly, they’re bent on hitting the ground running, not just surviving the season and then doing their finest in the playoffs, the way LeBron James’ Cavaliers used to do. They want to thrive, if for no other reason than because they want to show all and sundry they mean business. They’re looking to get separation from their immediate past failures, and pronto.
Unfortunately, the Lakers had slim pickings; they were in No Man’s Land, after the free agency frenzy that gobbled up just about all the good prospects and long before the period franchises look to unload otherwise-productive contracts for savings purposes. And so they found themselves scheduling workouts for Joakim Noah, Marreese Speights, and Dwight Howard before quickly coming to an agreement with the latter, much to the chagrin of fans who still remember the ill-fated “Big Four” 2012-13 campaign that instead resulted in a big thud.
Indeed, Lakers habitues view Howard with derision; his lone year in purple and gold — which, not coincidentally, ended with him getting banished from the court in his last game — was so horrifying that they continue to call it a “Dwighthmare.” And it isn’t as if he simply buckled under the klieg lights in La-La Land; not for nothing has he been passed around by five teams in four years. He has been deemed such an undesirable that new Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard last month made him the subject of “the quickest trade I’ve ever done in my life.”
So why did the Lakers still claim Howard off waivers? First, he actually managed to remain in the good graces of controlling owner Jeanie Buss despite all the horrors of his previous stint. Second, he convinced the coaching staff and would-be teammates of his desire to do exactly what is needed of him, nothing more and nothing less; his days as locker room poison are done, he said, and he’s simply out to repair his image given his advancing age and increasing susceptibility to injury. Third, and most importantly, they inked him to a non-guaranteed contract; should he act out, they can let go of him at any time without any attendant financial cost.
It’s a gamble, to be sure, and not without a crucial buy-in: Howard fills a roster spot that the Lakers were saving for the impending buyout of Andre Iguodala. The flipside, of course, is his potential to deliver the goods at a bargain. And the threshold is low; he simply needs to fill spot minutes at center, doing all the grunt work he used to blatantly consider beneath him. All the same, no one — not even from among his most optimistic backers — knows how the experiment will work out. All are now expecting the worst but hoping for the best, and certainly praying no fallout occurs.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
