Dwight Howard Trade Another Unabashed Win for the Lakers' Biggest Winner

Imagine the scene at the London Olympics when Team USA found out from across the pond that the Dwightmare was finally over.

While preparing for Friday's quarterfinal match against Argentina, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and the rest of Team USA surely took a break from their schedules to properly digest the ramifications of the reported trade sending superstar center Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers.

LeBron James must have thought: "What does this do to my team's title defense next year?"

Kevin Durant might have pondered: "Did I just win my last Western Conference Championship banner for the next two years?"

We certainly know that Andre Igoudala considered what life will be next year in Colorado after being sent to the Denver Nuggets in Thursday's epic four-team trade.

But collectively, as a group, America's finest basketball talents took pause to consider the elder statesman of the group.

Here it was. In plain view, and it happened again.

A riddle that was apparently solved the last two years but has suddenly been turned on its head like the rest of the Western Conference:

"Why does Kobe Bryant always win?"

As he's done time and time again throughout his career, the Mamba emerged on top Thursday, justifiably "ecstatic" (via ESPN) after learning of his team's blockbuster Dwight Howard nab.

We weren't in London to see it, but that cocky, cool grin, lovable only to Lakers fans, from Mr. Kobe "Bean" Bryant must have been ear to championship-ear.

The addition of Dwight Howard to a new-look Lakers team already celebrating the arrival of two-time-MVP Steve Nash is a win for Los Angeles and basketball fans everywhere. But it doesn't stop there.

Pau Gasol wins. Steve Nash wins. Metta World Peace wins. Even Andrew Bynum—finally getting his wish to be his team's primary offensive source—wins.

And no doubt, the NBA and its media mavens win from the creation of a new mega-team, a source of endless fodder and ratings galore.

Even with a newly restructured labor agreement, the laws of gravity do not apply when it comes to the NBA, its popularity or its centers of power. 

That's simply how it works in this league.

Like it or not, winners win.

And the biggest winner of them all—Kobe Bryant—just captured a Federer-esque win to notch onto his legendary belt.

So when Team USA inevitably does win their gold medal to close out a successful 2012 Olympics campaign, they will return to an NBA landscape forever changed by the league's most popular and most reviled organization—the Los Angeles Lakers—where winning just took on an entirely new meaning.