False Hope Department: Howard Would Consider Boston

Posted by Ryan DeGama on Jan 26, 2012 2565122 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2012%2F01%2F26%2Ffalse-hope-department-howard-would-consider-boston%2FFalse+Hope+Department%3A+Howard+Would+Consider+Boston2012-01-26+13%3A31%3A32Ryan+DeGamahttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D25651

Sigh.

I am legally required to provide this update, wherein Dwight Howard indicates that he would sort of definitely maybe consider the Celtics. Or at least he wouldn’t hang up on them.

Steve Bulpett stokes the fires of madness over at the Herald:

And if Howard is still available — if the Magic don’t blink and move him before the March deadline — C’s president Danny Ainge will undoubtedly put in a call to Team Dwight.

The question is whether he’ll answer.

“Always. Always,” Howard told the Herald. “I’d always listen to a team like that.

“My thing is I want to win. It’s not something like I’m doing this for money. I win. I want to do it my way.”

Don’t lie. Your hopes are rising, aren’t they? I can tell just by looking at you.

Well, there’s more, but you have to click past the jump it you want it:

“You know,” said Howard, “you look at a team like Boston and look at a team like LA who’s won … especially Boston. Man, those guys came together and they didn’t care who scored all the points. They had done all the individual stuff.

“You know, for me, I’ve done a lot of things individually, but I want a championship. All those accolades that I’ve got over the years, they mean a lot, but it’s just different watching teams hold up that trophy and knowing how hard you have to work to get it.

“They have the championship mentality,” he said of the Celts. “It means a lot. Like I said, I like the team. They play hard and they go after it, and that’s what I like.”

Three thoughts:

1) Bulpett goes out of his way not to manufacture anything and notes that Howard has referenced his regard for Boston before, but once the questions are asked of him, Dwight has little choice but to respond. And since there’s not much negotiating leverage to be gained by disparaging one of the few teams with available cap space this summer, this becomes a story whether it’s a story or not.

2) Dwight Howard is exactly the kind of player Danny Ainge wants. A franchise-altering superstar. Pretty much everything he’ll do over the next couple of years will be with an eye to adding a player of this caliber. So, as long as Howard doesn’t sign an extension with some other team, Ainge will pursue him.

3) I’d bet my life that Howard ends up elsewhere. Okay, not my life. But definitely Brendan’s and Hayes’ and Brian’s lives.