How can I resign Dwight Howard?

[nyrangers81]

Playing as the Lakers, my whole team is basically Kobe and Howard. I can't afford anyone else! Nash retires at the end of year 1. World Peace tries free agency. All I have left on my team is Kobe and Gasol. Kobe is in his last year of a contract so he is getting 30 million dollars! That means year 2 of a Lakers season it's impossible to have a functioning team to compete for the playoffs and sign Howard. Am I missing something? Is there a trick to have him resign before the end of the year for less money? I can draft a solid PG but still need a SF and PF ontop of signing Dwight to a new contract. There just isn't enough money. In real life I am sure the Lakers would do it if they had to. I won the championship in year 1, everyone on the team should love me.

[ProtatoPie]

Quote: Originally Posted by nyrangers81

Playing as the Lakers, my whole team is basically Kobe and Howard. I can't afford anyone else! Nash retires at the end of year 1. World Peace tries free agency. All I have left on my team is Kobe and Gasol. Kobe is in his last year of a contract so he is getting 30 million dollars! That means year 2 of a Lakers season it's impossible to have a functioning team to compete for the playoffs and sign Howard. Am I missing something? Is there a trick to have him resign before the end of the year for less money? I can draft a solid PG but still need a SF and PF ontop of signing Dwight to a new contract. There just isn't enough money. In real life I am sure the Lakers would do it if they had to. I won the championship in year 1, everyone on the team should love me.

There is a trick, if you wanna cheat.
But there's a no-hack too.

Here's the no-hack one.

Give Howard a lot of minutes. Probably take out abt. 6 mins out of Gasol's minutes and sign Elton Brand.

You now have 2 good Power Forwards.
Now raise Elton's minutes and make him a 7th rotational player.

Throughout the mid-season, there is a 65% chance Howard is going to resign (depending on your team's performance. 41-0 = 80% signing. 25-16 = approx. 50% resigning)

If Howard doesn't resign on the trade deadline, and you really REALLY want him..

Cheat.

Edit Howard on your 'manage roster' option.
Press LB or L1 on your controller (depending whether it's X-Box or it's PS3).
Go to Year 2, or the next year after his last year with cash in it.
Raise it to abt. 15M-20M.

There you go. Dwight's auto-resigned.

[StraightBaylien]

You can afford Howard if you let all expiring contracts go, but like you've said you'll have Kobe, Dwight, Pau and pretty much a bunch of players signed at minimum.

And Dwight not wanting to re-sign shouldn't be a problem, usually he's always happy and will re-sign a few weeks into the season.

[TeamBuilder]

Yes, you CAN field a pretty sick team with Lakers for a few seasons. It's all about knowing how the rules of the salary cap work. I just ran a Lakers sim that landed me the following lineup by year three (with legit cap management, no editing/cheating).

PG - Chris Paul
SG - Kobe Bryant
SF - Andre Iguodala
PF - LeBron James
C - Dwight Howard
6th Man - Anthony Randolph

Landing that team was very simple as long as you follow cap rules and understand Bird Rights. Here is what I did:

1) I traded Pau Gasol and Antawn Jamison for Andre Iguodala and Anthony Randolph in season one.

2) Moved other pieces with bloated contracts (Chris Duhon and Steve Blake) for expiring contracts like Daniel Gibson etc.

3) Heading into the offseason you must let Dwight Howard, Andre Iguodala (he always declines his player option) and all expiring contracts on your team test free agency. You still have their "Bird Rights" which will allow you to go over the cap to re-sign them. So for me, the only two players I had under contract are Kobe Bryant ($30 million) and Anthony Randolph ($2 million). With only roughly $32 of $60 million of cap space being used, I could sign Chris Paul. Then I used my Bird Rights to re-sign Dwight and Iggy.

4) *Important* I re-signed Iggy to a 1 year deal with a player option for a second year at about $15 million a year. He always declines the player option (which is key, because I want him to decline after season two).

5) Fill in the rest of the roster with minimum contracts. Play your second season.

6) Heading into the second offseason, you let Kobe's huge contract expire ($30 million) and let him test free agency (same thing you did with Dwight and Iggy last season). So the only players under contract are CP3, Dwight, and Anthony Randolph. That gives you plenty of money to sign LeBron! Then re-sign Kobe and Iggy by using their Bird Rights and you're good to go!

7) It's worth noting you'll basically have next to no hard cap when fielding your team. There's a trick to make hard cap sort of irrelevant. If you head into offseason two (the one where you land LeBron) and you have players on restricted contracts (such as Gordon Hayward), and you let them test free agency as restricted free agents, you can keep them AND go over the hard cap to do so.

[Taer]

Quote: Originally Posted by TeamBuilder

Yes, you CAN field a pretty sick team with Lakers for a few seasons. It's all about knowing how the rules of the salary cap work. I just ran a Lakers sim that landed me the following lineup by year three (with legit cap management, no editing/cheating). ...

I both really admire how you worked all this out, and feel a little sad that the game would allow all of this to happen the way it went down.

[JasonMartin]

Agreed.

I don't see that happening IRL though, I wish the trade logic would improve drastically.




Also, I don't get why Nash retires in the game after the 1st season with the Lakers. That's just stupid, I had it happen before. He's going to play at least 2 seasons IRL with the Lakers, that's what everyone expects. I can see him play all 3 seasons.

[nyrangers81]

Thank you TeamBuider. Season 3 is easy because as you said, Kobe can be signed for a huge new contract for much less than 30 million. He was very happy in the middle of year 2 and agreed to negotiate a new contract and I got him down to I think 12-15 million a year for 4 years plus a player option. Even though my team in year 2 was awful and we finished 11th in the division (and stupid me traded away my 1st round lottery pick in year 1 for a good draft after the first year). I'm sure irl he will play out his career with the Lakers so that would make sense.

I guess I still don't understand bird rights. Do I need to sign all the other players I need first and then for my last signing go after Howard? I offered him a little less money and he was insulted and said he doesn't want to talk to me again lol. What was the value of your contract with him?

I have no reason to want Lebron although Chris Paul going to the Lakers in year 2 or 3 might be realistic.

[TeamBuilder]

You'd want to sign Dwight to the Max deal and offer it on the first day of free agency along with a Max deal for Chris Paul. Paul should accept the deal before Howard does, therefore the cap space is used on Paul while bird rights kick in for Howard.