Shaquille O’Neal doesn’t just think it’s okay for Dwight Howard to return to the Orlando Magic in free agency this summer.
He endorses it.
As the Hall of Fame-bound tower said, per ESPN.com’s Calvin Watkins:
“I think it would be good for the city,” O’Neal said Monday of Howard returning to Orlando. “First of all, after the first time he left, letting a big young guy get away, it shouldn’t happen a second time. All the puzzle [pieces] have to fit.”
Shaq makes an interesting point about all the “puzzle pieces” having to fit, and he’s right. The Magic are perched in a precarious situation, caught between rebuilding and mediocrity. They already have Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic under contract as well. One of them, preferably Vucevic, would need to be moved before it makes even some semblance of sense for Howard to reunite with the Magic.
And that’s not all. The Magic need to get more talent. They’ll have a top-seven to -10 pick in this year’s draft and would need to start consolidating young assets, perhaps getting in on the running for trade bait like Kevin Love and Blake Griffin, to justify offering long-term money to an over-30 big man.
It’s highly unlikely all those stars align. Howard seems on his way out of Houston, but an Orlando return remains a longer than long shot. Shaq, truthfully, may just be projecting in this case. He is already on record as saying he never should have left the Magic in free agency, and on some level, he could see Howard’s initial departure from Orlando as an extension of himself.
