NBA Trade Speculation: Why the Lakers and Dwight Howard Must Reopen Talks

The Los Angeles Lakers offense has been a bit disappointing, to say the least.

They have a three-man core that currently ranks third in points per for a trio, but the team as a whole is only averaging 93 points per game—good enough for 19th in the league behind the likes of the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

It's even more surprising when you consider that Kobe Bryant is leading the league in points per at 30, while Pau Gasol maintains his usual consistency and Andrew Bynum even begins to get in on the act. At 16 points and 14 boards per, the big man is finally starting to become that player that the organization has been banking on since they drafted him as an 18-year old in 2005.

Arguably the league's second best center, Bynum has all that you could possibly want from a center in today's NBA. When healthy, Bynum is one of the NBA's top post defenders and rebounders. As you can tell by his production thus far, he's a force when he's healthy. His size and length allows him to finish over any opposing defender and he even has a decent post game to go with it.

Since Bynum is playing well and the Lakers are looking for answers on the offense, the iron couldn't be hotter to strike. The Lakers should attempt to take advantage of Bynum's sudden improvement by attempting to convince the Orlando Magic to put their All-Star center in Dwight Howard back on the market.

It's become widely known that Howard hasn't grown too fond of playing for the Magic. He's announced in the past that he's grown disgruntled with the way management has run things and has even gone as far as to demand a trade. For some reason, the demand was to go to the New Jersey Nets. A deal was propositioned, but fell through once Magic ownership denied it.

It's going to take a lot for the Magic to relinquish Howard because they still truly believe that there is a chance Dwight Howard will re-sign next offseason. He's not in a situation as bad as Chris Paul was with New Orleans, but there is still the high chance that he does depart for a contender during the 2012 summer.

Teams like the Dallas Mavericks, L.A. Clippers and L.A. Lakers have all inquired and are showing tremendous interest in obtaining the services of the league's top center. Why wouldn't they either? They all have a need for a center like Howard and all have the pieces to go after him.

Dallas appears to be the most adamant. They allowed Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and Caron Butler to just walk away from Dallas over the offseason, which is a clear indication that they're attempting to save some money. They also traded for Lamar Odom and signed him to a one-year deal. Is it coincidence that his deal ends this coming summer? I think not.

Not only that, but the Mavericks will also be attempting to persuade Deron Williams to join them as well.

With a team like Dallas set to heavily pursue Howard, the Lakers need to start making their moves now. This three man core they currently have is solid enough to keep them near the top of the Western Conference and possibly atop the Pacific Division, but it's not a team that's going to win a title in the near future. You need some depth to add to the equation and the Lakers don't have any of that.

There are only so many years before this Lakers team becomes too old and/or hurt to become championship eligible. Without a player like Odom coming off the bench, the scoring output has been placed squarely on the shoulders of Kobe Bryant. Even though he has Gasol and Bynum ready to contribute, Bryant still wants to be the overall scoring leader by a wide margin.

Is it that he doesn't have enough confidence in those two? It's easy to understand why. Gasol is coming off an embarrassingly bad postseason and Bynum has never been that type of player who could be relied on each and every night. With no Odom, Bryant is in hero mode and is attempting to win games by himself rather than allowing his teammates to help him out.

Gasol and Bynum's points per combine for only two more points than what Bryant is averaging. It's disappointing that the Lakers have yet to use their two largest advantages and resources, but it doesn't even really matter when there aren't any bench players that can contribute and consistently score every night.

Metta World Peace, Troy Murphy and Jason Kapono just aren't going to get the job done. What the Lakers need is a scorer who can dominate, be relied on every night and have the full confidence of Kobe Bryant. This is still Kobe's team until he retires and he's going to pass it to who he feels has the best chance of making the shot in that particular situation.

With Dwight Howard, you have a healthy Andrew Bynum on another level. Howard may not have a better offensive skill set than Bynum, but he does have a clear advantage in every category, which includes defending, shot blocking, rebounding and scoring overall. Also, I don't believe he's ever had a run-in that features him throwing his elbow into a 5'11" point guard.

Howard provides everything that Bynum can't. He's only 26 years old and is continuing to learn the offensive tricks of the trade. We've seen what he can do when he gets the ball more than once every four possessions as it has translated to offensive success. Last year, he averaged a career high 13 shots per night and ended up posting 23 points per game on 59 percent shooting.

If the Lakers can treat Howard like he was their Shaquille O'Neal by giving him 15 to 20 shots per game, he could be capable of posting up 25 points or more per game. His scoring numbers have been so low not only because of his offensive inconsistencies, but also due to the fact that the Magic prefer to run the ball through the perimeter as opposed to the smarter method of having it go through Howard.

Obviously, the Lakers are a lot better with Howard on the floor instead of Bynum. The only problem is that they might have to give up more than Bynum to obtain him, which means that Pau Gasol might also have to be a part of the deal. Unless the Lakers can somehow manage to take away Ryan Anderson, Hedo Turkoglu or J.J. Redick as well, it wouldn't make much sense to trade away both members of the front court.

Because what happens when you trade away Gasol? Josh McRoberts or Troy Murphy then become the starting power forward and the Lakers find themselves with only two quality scorers instead of three.

Unless they can also secure another quality role player on the Magic, it's going to be awfully difficult to obtain Dwight.