Dwight Howard: Orlando Magic Superstar Should Give New Regime a Chance

The Dwight Howard saga doesn't appear to be ending any time soon, especially after Howard once again expressed his desire to leave the Orlando Magic. With a new regime in place, however, the star center should give his long-time employer a chance to retain him.

According to Ric Bucher of ESPN, new Magic general manager Rob Hennigan called Howard and attempted to convince him to stay. Team president Alex Martins made a similar, futile effort last season, and Howard once again refused to budge from his trade demands.

The Magic organization has bent over backwards for Howard to this point, but he has been anything but cooperative. Howard had an issue with former general manager Otis Smith and former head coach Stan Van Gundy, so Orlando let both of them go and brought in Hennigan and a coach yet to be determined in order to replace them.

Despite the Magic's best efforts to appease Howard, he continues to be a diva in every sense of the word. Perhaps the team hasn't made the roster improvements that he wanted, but with so much uncertainty surrounding his situation, it has been very difficult for Orlando to do anything. Howard is essentially holding the organization hostage and preventing it from making any other impact moves.

To make matters even worse, Howard continues to ask for a trade to the Brooklyn Nets specifically. Orlando did everything it could to make a deal happen, but it didn't want to take forward Kris Humphries back as part of the trade, so things fell through when a third team failed to get involved. Now it appears that a deal with the Nets is all but dead.

Brooklyn was forced into re-signing center Brook Lopez so the Charlotte Bobcats wouldn't ink the big man to an offer sheet. Now that Lopez has re-signed, the Nets aren't permitted to trade him until Jan. 15 per the collective bargaining agreement. Lopez would have to be the main piece going back in a swap for Howard, so now Orlando will either have to trade him elsewhere or keep him for the time being.

What has become clear, though, is that no matter what the Magic's new regime does at this point, Howard has already checked out. He doesn't want to be in Orlando and even when he gave fans some hope last season by agreeing to stay through the end of the year, it was simply false hope meant to make him look like a team player.

Howard has constantly pulled at the heartstrings of the Magic fans and management and will come out of this situation looking like the bad guy. That could all change if he were to decide to see what the new regime can do, but the odds of that happening are next to nothing now. The Magic have tried to accommodate Howard as much as possible, but he hasn't helped them out in return.

Right now it appears as though the Houston Rockets have emerged as the top contenders to land Howard, but if D12 lands there, he might regret asking out of Orlando. The Rockets are solid as currently constructed, but they have already cut Luis Scola via the amnesty provision in order to make room for Howard and would be trading Kevin Martin as well as all three of their first-round selections in this year's draft to get Howard.

That wouldn't leave Howard with much of a supporting cast as he would essentially be the only game in town, so to speak. Howard would probably have a better chance to win in Orlando and even if he decides not to re-sign at the end of the season, at least he would save face to some degree by giving the new regime a proper opportunity to impress him.

Howard is as good as gone, however, and nothing the Magic brass does will be enough to keep him. Howard has been very selfish over the past year and his dismissal of Hennigan is yet another example of that.

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