Rumor has it the Warriors are aggressively trying to give away some players (by packaging them with picks) in order to clear enough cap space to sign Dwight Howard. Which, in turn, leads to speculation that Dwight must be encouraging the Warriors. It would be incredibly risky for the Warriors to be making offers like Bogut + a first round pick in exchange for future second round picks unless the Warriors were reasonably sure that Dwight will sign.

This has led the internet to further speculate that the Lakers should sign and trade Dwight, less they get nothing. But here's the problem: there is almost nothing the Lakers could possibly get in return that would a) match salaries and b) be better than just letting him go. For clarity, here is the Laker's current salary situation according to HoopsHype:

At $77million, if Dwight leaves, the lakers are barely above the luxury tax line, and could get themselves under it by amnestying World Peace or Kobe. Amnestying Kobe would save them even more money because somebody will take him for a few million off of first waivers, thus reducing the Lakers contractual obligations in addition to the $5 million or so tax savings from amnestying him. But we all know they won't do this. I've beaten that dead horse too long.

Furthermore, everyone but Nash is on an expiring contract (and some possible rookies). This means a couple of important things:

• The Lakers have a ton of ways to make deadline deals this year if they so choose
• The Lakers have near infinite cap space next year
• The Lakers gain NO BENEFIT from further expiring deals, unless they give up Nash, which would gain them $10mil more cap room.
• The Lakers pay a repeat-offender luxury tax on every dollar they take back in a Dwight deal.

So, I'm sorry all you fans of teams proposing crazy sign & trades where the Lakers take 3 expiring deals for Dwight; it ain't happening unless there are a crapload of other assets involved. $20 million in expiring deals is essentially just going to cost the Lakers $50 million to be back at the same point they'd be if they just let Dwight walk. So, if the trade costs the Lakers $50 million, the pot would have to be sweetened with more draft picks than any team wants to pay.

the 2014 offseason should be interesting. The Lakers will offer LeBron the max, obviously. There aren't a ton of other big free agents available. Unless one of this year's RFA's signs the one-year QA.