Dwight Howard Trade Rumors: Magic Must Not Rule out Last-Second Howard Deal

The NBA's trade deadline is a week from Thursday.

In other words, the Dwight Howard situation is going to come to a head very soon.

The latest rumors concerning Howard amount to one big shrug. It was long expected that the Orlando Magic would cave in their quest to keep Howard and deal him at the deadline, but the perception has changed ever since it became apparent that the Magic would rather trade for supporting cast players.

On Thursday, a report from Ken Berger of CBSSports.com has shed some light on what the uncertainty over Howard means for the rest of the NBA:

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The obvious impediment to significant deals getting done [at the deadline] is the uncertainty over Orlando's decision with Dwight Howard. Teams that are involved in, or on the periphery of the Howard sweepstakes, are reluctant to get involved in other deals until the Magic decide whether they're trading their franchise center in the next seven days or not.

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In particular, Berger notes that the holding pattern the Howard situation has gone into has "paralyzed" the New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks, all three of whom are among Howard's preferred destinations. They're not going to know what to do until it becomes clear that Howard is either going to stay or go.

Meanwhile, reports keep coming out about players who the Magic are targeting to make the team around Howard stronger. Berger notes that the Magic are one of several teams in on Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley, Alex Kennedy of HOOPSWORLD has reported that Howard wants to team with Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, and ESPN's Chris Broussard reported last week that the Magic have asked about Golden State Warriors shooting guard Monta Ellis.

Because there's still a week to go until the deadline, we can all rest assured that the Magic are going to be linked to other players as well. They're going to exhaust the phones, and it's a safe bet nobody in the team's front office is going to be sleeping much.

The Magic, however, have to realize that trying to build a stronger team around Howard via a deadline deal or two may end up being a fool's errand. The team doesn't have much in the way of tradeable assets (other than Howard, of course), so acquiring other teams' tradeable assets will be much easier said than done.

So here's a theory: If Howard is going to be traded, it's going to be at the very last minute. We may not even hear about it until seconds before the deadline, or maybe even seconds after the deadline.

A last-second trade is basically a matter of the Magic seeing the writing on the wall. If their attempts to acquire more talent fail, they'll be dealing with a disappointed Howard who would surely be very serious about opting out of his contract at the end of the season, heading elsewhere.

In a totally separate Thursday report, Berger noted that rival executives are of the mind that the Magic would be fools to think they can hold on to Howard unless they get a commitment from him by next week.

"I think they've got to trade him," said a rival GM. "It's a hell of a risk if they don't."

One thing's become clear, though, and that's that the Magic are serious to the utmost about keeping Howard. If they don't get a commitment from him, it won't be for lack of trying.

The clock has been ticking for months, but the situation has officially reached crunch time. If something is going to happen, it's going to happen soon.