NBA Rumors: Magic Crazy to Think Monta Ellis Will Make Dwight Howard Stay

The Orlando Magic organization has lost their collective mind if they think swinging a crazy trade with the Golden State Warriors to get Monta Ellis will convince Dwight Howard to stay.

Chris Broussard of ESPN has the scoop.

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Rather than aggressively pursuing a trade of Howard before the March 15 deadline, the Magic are desperately seeking a move that will convince Howard he can stay in Orlando.

Howard has long mentioned Ellis, who is the seventh leading scorer in the league with a 22.2 points average, as someone he would love to play with.

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Just because Dwight would love to play with an alpha-dog scorer like Monta, it does not mean he will be convinced to stay in Orlando past this season.

Plus, the Magic do not even have any viable trading pieces to land Ellis and the Warriors owner, Joe Lacob, is apparently convinced he can convince the superstar center to join his team.

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Sports Illustrated’s Sam Amick reports that Lacob is “obsessed with the far-fetched thought of landing Howard himself, and chances are he wouldn't green-light any move -- even if it was a three- or four-team situation -- that helped Orlando keep Howard.”

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There is just no plausible way that the Magic can work something out with the Warriors unless they did something drastic and made an irrefutable offer.

Of course, something like that would hamstring the franchise even more and Dwight would definitely be done in the city.

If the Magic want to keep the reigning three-time Defensive Player of the Year, they need to start by firing GM Otis Smith.

Smith is the “genius” who decided to let Hedo Turkoglu walk after their Finals appearance in 2009. He was then signed to a massive deal by the Toronto Raptors, traded to the Suns and finally taken back by the Magic at a higher price than they could have initially signed him for.

This is not someone you want running your franchise and certainly not someone who should be negotiating any trades for Monta Ellis.

Once Smith is gone and a competent GM is brought in, such as Kevin Pritchard, the Magic can work on adding solid role players around Dwight and clearing cap space to sign a marquee free agent this summer.

If they can’t do that, Dwight is going to leave.

Howard simply isn’t going to stay with Smith in town and certainly not if the Magic somehow overpay for Ellis and give away assets and future cap room in the process.