Howard To Lakers, Bynum To 76ers In 4-Team Deal

11:18am: SI.com's Sam Amick tweets that McRoberts will be heading to Orlando in the deal, rather than to Denver. Wherever McRoberts ends up, it seems the Lakers will be shipping him out to make the salary figures work.

10:55am: Coon corrects himself (via Twitter), suggesting that Bynum's and Eyenga's salaries aren't quite enough to absorb Howard's and Duhon's. Here's how it looks from the Lakers' perspective, by my calculations:

• The team's $1,422,207 traded player exception acquired via Walton can absorb Clark's $1.24MM option.
• Bynum's $16,889,000 salary and Eyenga's $1,174,080 total $18,063,080. The Lakers can take back 125% (plus $100K) of that amount: $22,678,850.
• Howard's and Duhon's salaries ($19,536,360 and $3,250,000, respectively) total $22,786,360, just barely too much for the Lakers to absorb. So in order to take on both players, Los Angeles will have to either include another player (perhaps McRoberts or Ebanks) or figure out another way to organize the deal. Assuming, of course, that all the public salary figures for these players are accurate.

We should hear shortly how the Lakers ultimately work things out, since the conference call with the league to finalize the trade is expected to begin momentarily, tweets Ken Berger.

10:26am: Cap expert Larry Coon clarifies (via Twitter) that the trade exception the Lakers acquired when they dealt Luke Walton to the Cavaliers is big enough to absorb Clark's salary, so Los Angeles wouldn't necessarily have to send out any more players in addition to Bynum and Eyenga.

10:08am: The pick heading to the Magic from the Sixers will be lottery-protected for the first two years, top-11 protected in year three, and top-eight protected in year four, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Since the Sixers have already dealt their 2013 first-rounder (lottery protected) to Miami, presumably the one going to Orlando would be for 2015, as Sam Amick of SI.com notes. If the Magic don't get a first-rounder from Philadelphia after four years, they'd get two second-round picks instead, tweets Berger.

9:32am: According to Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld, Josh McRoberts may be headed to Denver in the four-way deal. This makes sense, since by my calculations, the Lakers would be unable to take back Howard, Duhon, and Clark without sending out another player in addition to Bynum and Eyenga.

8:49am: The first-rounder heading from the Lakers to Orlando will be the team's 2017 pick, while the first-rounder from Denver will be the lower of the club's two 2014 first-rounders, tweets TNT's David Aldridge. It's still not clear which first-round pick will be coming from the Sixers, but it figures to be 2015's, since their lottery-protected 2013 first-rounder is ticketed for Miami.

8:26am: Duhon is definitely involved in the four-way deal, as he tells Joshua Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel (Twitter link).

FRIDAY, 7:33am: According to Spears, one of the second-rounders heading to the Magic in the trade will be the Warriors' 2013 second-round pick, from the Nuggets (Twitter link). Orlando will receive one more second-rounder, to bring their total haul to five future draft picks, tweets Kennedy.

Additionally, multiple reports indicate that the conference call with the league to confirm the blockbuster deal will happen no later than about noon eastern today.

THURSDAY, 11:41pm: Larry Coon of HoopsWorld and ESPN.com hears point guard Chris Duhon might be going from the Magic to the Lakers (Twitter link). Earl Clark will also go from Orlando to L.A., tweets Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, who reiterates Amick's report that the Magic will get multiple second-round picks in the deal as well.

11:30pm: Christian Eyenga is headed from the Lakers to the Magic as part of the deal, Kennedy tweets.

11:26pm: The Magic are in line for "multiple" second-round picks, writes Sam Amick of SI.com. He also says the Sixers were reluctant to give up Harkless, the 15th overall pick in the draft this past June.

10:47pm: Kennedy hears the Magic may be getting another pick to go along with their three first-rounders in the deal (Twitter link). 

10:25pm: The Nuggets could get something additional in the trade, Kennedy tweets. Berger says via Twitter that two sources have cautioned that they have not heard directly from the Magic that they've agreed to the deal. Still, the framework of the deal is in place, Berger tweets. 

9:27pm: A source tells Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld that the Magic, Lakers, Nuggets and Sixers have agreed to the framework of a Dwight Howard deal that sends the league's top center to the Lakers (Twitter link). Kennedy tweets that he's unsure of the precise framework, but ESPN.com's Marc Stein hears that the Magic will receive Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, Nikola Vucevic, Maurice Harkless and a future first-round draft choice from each of the other three teams in the deal. The Sixers will get Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson. The Nuggets will get Andre Iguodala, and the Lakers will land Howard. Other players are likely to be involved as well, Stein says, although their identities are not yet known. The draft choices going to the Magic are lottery protected, Stein writes.

A conference call with the league office has been scheduled for Friday morning to finalize the deal. Progress on the deal seemed to move swiftly after news of a potential four-team trade broke this afternoon. Earlier reports suggested Gasol would go to the Magic, but that apparently has not materialized. There were also reports that the Lakers could send Devin Ebanks and Josh McRoberts out as part of the trade.

Howard and Bynum are both in the final years of their contracts. Stein hears Howard is unlikely to sign an extension with the Lakers (Twitter link). Sam Amick of SI.com reported earlier that Bynum has had no talks about an extension with the Sixers, who were willing to take him on regardless. Last month a report by Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com suggested the Lakers were willing to roll the dice on Howard, thinking that being around the team's championship culture for a year would entice him to re-sign next summer. The new CBA makes it more lucrative for veterans to re-sign with their teams as free agents as opposed to inking an extension, giving Howard and Bynum further reason to wait it out.

The agreement appears to put an end to months of speculation about Howard's next destination. Howard has been in the middle of nearly constant trade talks since the lockout ended late last year. On multiple occasions he expressed a desire to be traded, and for much of the time the Nets were his primary target. When the Nets took themselves out of the running by re-signing Brook Lopez, Howard began to consider other teams, including the Lakers and Rockets. 

The move gives the Lakers an intimidating lineup featuring Howard, Gasol, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, strengthening already vibrant championship hopes. 

The Sixers land the second biggest name in the deal with Bynum. They give up Iguodala, a member of Team USA, in exchange for a legitimate post presence and go-to threat in the paint. They also get Richardson, who will likely step into Iguodala's small forward position.

The Nuggets send away Afflalo, whom they'd just signed to a long-term contract last year, and Harrington, who has three more seasons left on his deal, for Iguodala, a defensive stalwart who made his first All-Star team last season.

The Magic get youth, draft picks and flexibility, though perhaps not as much as they were thought to be getting in other rumored trades. They can get out of Harrington's deal after this season, since the final two years are only partially guaranteed, and they have a player option on Vucevic for 2013/14. They could have $20MM in cap space next summer, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com notes (Twitter link).

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported that a four-team deal was in the works, along with the initial framework. Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reported Vucevic's involvement. Eric Pincus of HoopsWorld reported that Gasol would not be in the deal. Chris Broussard of ESPN.com reported the deal was close, and Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported the conference call had been scheduled. Jarrod Rudolph of RealGM.com, Ric Bucher of ESPN.com, and Dei Lynam of CSNPhilly.com also reported detail.  

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