just found this interesting blog post by feigen, who covers the rockets for the houston chronicle. got some insight on what exactly was on the table for orlando and where they want to go from here.
https://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2012/08/lakers-acquire-howard-what-next-for-rockets/
according to this, houston was offering the following for dwight:
* the toronto pick they got for lowry, which will be a lotto pick unless the raps make the playoffs in each of the next six seasons.
* a pick from dallas, likely to be a mid first-rounder
* two players from among patterson, morris, motiejunas, lamb, white and jones
* they were going to take back two bad orlando contracts (2 of the 3: hedo, duhon, jrich)
* AND they were open to adding a pick of their own, likely a late lotto pick.
so here's my question -- if dwight is worth that stack of assets, what will they be willing to offer for plan B? morey indicated that they are still shopping when he said, “I’d say we need to get All-Star-level play whether it is through the draft, free agency or a trade. Whenever there is an opportunity to take one of those steps, we want to be involved if it makes sense for all parties.”
jefferson's not an all-star, but he has been close a couple of times. so what if we just asked them for this, instead of what they were offering for howard.
* they can keep the toronto pick. that's a likely top ten pick, so they're probably not going to part with.
* we'll take the pick from dallas, likely to be a mid first-rounder
* instead of two players from among patterson, morris, motiejunas, lamb, white and jones, we'll just take one. my pref: jones or white.
* instead of taking back 15-20M in bad orlando contracts, they just have to swallow roger braille's 3.3M
* and instead of taking their pick, we'll just include it as a "right to exchange" for 2013 and 2014. meaning that we can opt to take their pick instead of ours if it's better in either of those two drafts, top 6 protected.