Dwight Howard Trade Rumors: Howard Requests Trade to New Jersey Nets

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Dwight Howard has asked to be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Wonjarowski cites Orlando Magic GM, Otis Smith as his source. 

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Smith confirmed that Howard has asked to be traded to the Orlando Sentinel on Saturday afternoon....

...The Nets are offering a package centered on Brook Lopez, and multiple first-round picks, sources said. New Jersey could also be looking for deals to sweeten its offer to Orlando.

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According to Wojnarowski, Howard would be willing to sign a five-year, $109 million contract.

Two things are important to point out according to the article. First, that Howard prefers the Nets to the Lakers and second, that the Magic seem to prefer Bynum to Lopez. 

Having said that the Lakers are scrambling about the league trying to find another draft pick to include in the trade with New Orleans to acquire Chris Paul. 

It will be hard for the Lakers to compile enough lose pieces after they are done getting the Paul deal together to get Howard and Howard would seem to prefer the Nets, but the Lakers, if nothing else, are persistent. 

There is also this report from Ken Berger of CBS Sports,

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However, a person involved in Howard's decision-making process maintained Saturday that the Lakers were by no means out of the picture -- and that, in fact, Howard views L.A. as a better fit for his off-court aspirations. The conflicting signals from Howard are similar to what Magic executives have experienced over the past year as the All-NBA center has frequently changed his mind about whether he wants to stay in Orlando or not.

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There's also the fact that the Magic have said they "won't be bullied into trading Dwight." 

Having said all that, if you're keeping score, the Nets seem to have taken the lead. For Howard it looks like he'll be having either Chris Paul or Deron Williams passing him the ball—not too bad.