NBA Rumors: Lamar Odom Trade Doesn't Mean Dwight Howard Will Soar to L.A.

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When the Lakers suddenly pulled out of their trade talks with the Hornets for Chris Paul  today, the first and natural presumption held by many is that the Lakers would go after Dwight Howard. 

Then the Lakers announced they had agreed to trade their reigning sixth man of the year to the Dallas Mavericks  for a trade exception and Dallas first-round pick.

Again there was an assumption, albeit this time a nervous one, that somehow this made sense in the future acquisition of the coveted center, Dwight Howard. 

It was a head-scratcher trying to figure out how though as Lamar Odom was always presumed to be an important part of any potential trade which would land Howard in Orlando. 

Now, reports are coming out that the reason for the trade has nothing to do with Dwight Howard and everything to do with Odom. Distraught that the Lakers were so willing to include him in a trade, Odom asked to be traded on Friday night. 

Mike Bresnehan of the L.A. Times tweets, 

"After trading Odom, are Lakers about to get Howard or maybe revisit Paul trade again? Source: "There's nothing going on."

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Kevin Ding, also of the Times, is in agreement. 

I'm told there's no way Lakers are trading Bynum and Gasol for Dwight Howard.

He also tweets:

"Lakers now quietly saying that Lamar wanted to be traded. Lamar told Kupchak on Friday, and his agent followed it up Saturday with Kupchak."

I'm not sure how you "quietly" say something to the Times without it being known to the entire world, but that's not really the important thing here. The important thing is that Odom wanted to be traded. 

A couple of days ago, the Lakers were looking like they were about to have arguably the greatest offseason ever. Now they might be on the verge of one of the worst in team history. 

They lost their sixth man. Their star power forward, Pau Gasol is distraught. Kobe Bryant is mad. There are going to be a lot of wounded egos and hurt feelings to mend and they have a new head coach to do it in Mike Brown. 

On top of that, and perhaps lost in all the drama is that they are down one of their best players and haven't addressed their need for a point guard. For the first time since they acquired Pau Gasol the Lakers might not be much more than an afterthought come postseason.