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Free agency may be in overdrive right now, but the biggest fish in this summer’s pond isn’t a free agent. Orlando center Dwight Howard is angling for a trade and the Magic seem ready to grant his request, affording some fortunate team the opportunity to add the league’s best center and arguably its second-best player. There is no way for Orlando to "win" a Howard trade; it is merely the magnitude of the losing that is in question. But with Howard hell-bent on leaving after the season as a free agent — and equally hell-bent, it seems, on relegating The Decision to second place on the PR disaster standings board — it behooves the Magic to get as much value as they can now rather than losing him for nothing after the season. Under new general manager Rob Hennigan, the goal for Orlando will be to "De-Otis" its cap situation as much as possible in a Howard trade by unloading contracts such as those belonging to Chris Duhon (two years, $4.75 million of guaranteed money); Glen Davis (three years, $19.4 million); Jason Richardson (three years, $19.5 million); Hedo Turkoglu (two years, $17.8 million); and Quentin Richardson (two years, $5.5 million). The other consideration is to get back as much young talent as possible. Other than restricted free agent Ryan Anderson, Orlando’s cupboard of quality players under the age of 25 is pretty much bare. If Hennigan plays his cards right and picks the right kids, he can end up with a clean cap, a lot of youth on the roster and a chance to rebuild quickly. That will be the goal. As for the participants, Howard has indicated he wants to go to Brooklyn and will sign an extension only there. But with the Nets in the midst of tying up their cap space on other players and eliminating the threat of Howard signing there after the season, other possibilities have developed. Let’s handicap how the field looks: Houston The Rockets are looking at merely renting Howard for this season and hoping he’ll re-sign afterward. It’s a huge risk, mainly because any deal with Howard also is going to stick the Rockets with a bunch of bad contracts that might be on their books long after Howard is gone. But between New Jersey’s cap situation and the fact Houston can offer the best deal if it has Howard’s Bird Rights, it could be a worthwhile risk. At first glance, it seemed as if Houston’s offer sheet with Omer Asik might complicate matters by eliminating some of the Rockets’ ability to soak up bad contracts from the Magic. Actually, nothing of the sort. Thanks to the provision in the new CBA that trade dollars between teams need only be within 50 percent of each other, the best way to unload a bunch of money in a superstar trade now exists above the cap, not below it. Houston wouldn’t be taking bad Orlando contracts into cap space; it’d be taking them on and sending two-thirds of the dollar value back. A workable deal can be had hinging on the expiring contracts of Kevin Martin and Kyle Lowry going to the Magic, as well as a flotilla of young assets to help the Magic rebuild. Chief among them are the six first-round picks Houston has from the past three seasons: Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, Donatas Motiejunas, Jeremy Lamb, Terrence Jones, and Royce White. Amazingly, the Rockets can trade all six of them, as well as last season’s starting backcourt of Martin and Lowry, and still have a very strong team. They’d solidify the backcourt by re-signing Goran Dragic and Courtney Lee, starting Chandler Parsons and Luis Scola at forward, and having Howard at center with Asik backing him up. The rest of the team would be built from the Magic’s leftovers; for instance, if Houston included Patterson, Morris, Motiejunas and Jones, Orlando could conceivably dump Jason Richardson, Davis and Duhon on Houston along with Howard. Doing that would leave Houston with a second unit of Duhon, Richardson, White, Lamb, Davis and Asik — not too shabby — and the Rockets still could fortify that with another guard via the under-cap midlevel exception. (Incidentally, it also would threaten to make Houston the first team in recorded history to sign a player with cap space and pay luxury tax in the same season.) But what of a post-Howard nuclear winter? The Rockets would be capped out with a very average roster for a couple of seasons, but even that scenario presumes they couldn’t work a sign-and-trade to get some assets back. At worst, they’d have one very good year with Howard and two bad ones after he left. It’s a risk that seems worth taking. Brooklyn As Howard tries to engineer a trade to Brooklyn, the Nets seem far less interested in him right now. They’ve been moving away from a Howard scenario ever since they traded a lottery pick to Portland for Gerald Wallace, removing one of their two biggest chips in a potential Howard deal. They still can put together a fairly enticing deal, however. Right now they could use a signed-and-traded Brook Lopez, MarShon Brooks and the same cap flotsam they’re offering to Atlanta for Joe Johnson (Anthony Morrow, Jordan Farmar, Jordan Williams, Johan Petro, Darwin Cook, Jamie Feick, Foots Walker and a signed-and-traded Benoit Benjamin), and the idea would be for Orlando to send them Howard and dump as many bad contracts as they can in the process. As with the Houston deal referenced above, Orlando would try to stick the Nets with Davis, Richardson and Duhon in addition to Howard. This is comparable to Houston’s offer, but from here I think Houston’s has the slight advantage. The Rockets offer two good players on expiring contracts that Orlando could immediately flip for other assets, and four young players against one from the Nets. The one counter from New Jersey is that it offers a legit starting center in Lopez to be the foundation for the Magic, but a Lopez-Anderson frontcourt will give up 200 points per game. Brooklyn also can offer draft picks — including, ironically, a lottery-protected pick from Houston dating from the Terrence Williams trade — but the Magic are unlikely to place a huge value on picks likely to be in the 20s. Of course, the real way for the Nets to leverage themselves into a Howard deal is by keeping their cap space open for 2013 and making it seem a fait accompli that Howard is going there anyway. That type of maneuver might scare off "rental" suitors such as Houston and Golden State, or at least give them enough pause to limit their offers. Instead, the Nets seem to be taking that option out of commission entirely. Maybe it’s worth it to get a Williams-Johnson-Wallace-Humphries-Lopez lineup; certainly that’s an impressive starting five. Nonetheless, I’d have to think Williams, Howard and any three randomly selected humanoids would be more impressive. As always, the Nets have me scratching my head. Lakers L.A.’s path to Howard is perhaps the simplest: Offer Andrew Bynum. He’s the only player who could remotely pass as a substitute for a departed Howard. However, contract semantics interfere. Bynum has an expiring contract and would need to sign an extension for the Magic to have much interest in a deal; otherwise they’re playing the same game again, only with Bynum instead of Howard. But it doesn’t appear Bynum has great motivation to extend his deal just so he can be shipped out of town. Which is why scenarios involving the Lakers are likely to be extremely difficult sledding. If L.A. somehow gets past this hurdle, I think it’s more likely to be in a three-team trade that also sends Pau Gasol someplace else (Minnesota, perhaps, or Houston) and splits the returned assets among the Magic and Lakers. Such a deal would reduce the Lakers’ luxury tax burden — an ongoing issue in L.A. — but it’s not as good a one for Orlando. The Lakers can’t help the Magic by taking on bad contracts the way Houston or Brooklyn can; they’re trying to get rid of contracts, not add more. Thus, while one suspects Howard would relent and re-sign with the Lakers after the season, it’s highly unlikely the Magic’s best offer will come from L.A. Dallas The Mavs are another team that could look at rental situations with Howard, especially because they were on a previous iteration of Howard’s "list" and thus have to think they have a decent chance of getting him to stay. Dallas’ problem is a lack of young assets and expiring contracts to put into a trade. The Magic have no interest in Shawn Marion or Brendan Haywood, and the Mavs’ young assets (Rodrigue Beaubois, Dominique Jones, and Jared Cunningham) are weak sauce compared to Houston’s. Because of the lack of expiring deals, it’s virtually impossible for the Mavs to help out Orlando by taking on other bad contracts, and thus, virtually impossible for them to have the best trade offer. The more intriguing possibility for Dallas is whether the Mavs would keep their cap space open for another season in order to leave the door open for Howard. It’s a risky move, especially given that Dirk Nowitzki’s prime isn’t going to last forever, but one that could pay huge dividends. Golden State The Warriors expressed interest in a rental situation involving Howard, and if they’d had half a brain in managing their cap the past year they would probably be able to pull it off. Unfortunately, the Warriors amnestied Charlie Bell last season in a futile attempt to overpay DeAndre Jordan, and eliminated a huge expiring contract by dealing Stephen Jackson for Richard Jefferson. What the Warriors could have done instead was amnesty Andris Biedrins, renounce Brandon Rush, and use the $13 million cap hole to take in Davis and Richardson, then use the Jackson expiring contract and Andrew Bogut to trade for Turkoglu, Duhon and Howard. The Warriors would have been the only team capable of relieving the Magic of every bad contract on their books; that, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes would surely have gotten a deal done. Instead, the Warriors are facing the much more difficult task of trying to make a deal solely with players. Bogut again would be the centerpiece cap-wise, with Thompson, Barnes, and Dorell Wright going out and Richardson and Davis coming back along with Howard. The knife-edge of this deal, however, is whether the Warriors would put Stephen Curry into it, too. I’m guessing that’s what Orlando would require for Golden State’s offer to trump Houston’s — especially because the Warriors can’t trade their first-round pick because they already owe a future first to Utah — and I’m guessing that’s the part where Golden State walks away, especially in a rental situation. Nonetheless, the Warriors are an intriguing dark horse, based on their willingness to play the rental game, the lure of the Bay Area market, and their apparent lust for big splashy news conferences. Unfortunately, they’d be in a much better position to pull this off if it weren’t for their previous big splashy news conference moves.

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