Alex Martins, CEO of the Magic, is unwilling to trade Dwight Howard until every possible effort to retain him is exhausted.
“We have a couple of weeks until the trade deadline, which is a critical point on the calendar to determine how we can move forward together,” Martins said of the ongoing Dwight saga. “Our conversations with Dwight continue, and I feel good about the conversations we’ve had. … I’ve said all along our reason for not trading Dwight at the beginning of the season is that time would be on our side one way or another. Time would be on our side in the fact that we could work with Dwight to address his needs and ultimately convince him to stay. Or time would work on our side in that if Dwight made the decision that he didn’t want to stay, we would have more time to talk to other teams about what trade possibilities exist.”
Martins still talks as if keeping Howard is a real possibility and the Magic’s No. 1 goal.
”We’ve continued to to have a daily dialogue with Dwight since December,” Martins said. ”He feels that he is being heard as far as what his goals are. And, by the way, the goals are the same: We both want to win. That’s what he continues to tell us and we continue to tell him. We both want to win a championship and we’ve been working toward that for many, many years. I think the proof is in the pudding because of what we’ve done and what we’ve invested to try and win. We’ll continue those dialogues over the next couple of weeks and hopefully we’ll get to a point where we both believe that the best place to win a championship is Orlando and we’ll work out the details to make sure Dwight is a part of that for years to come.”
According to various reports, the Magic are aggressively pursuing the likes of Monta Ellis and Steve Nash.