Dwight Howard to Lakers

NBA's continual move toward retraction continued with Dwight Howard weaseling his way out of Orlando, just six months after recommitting to the team, as he was traded in a blockbuster NBA trade that will land him in Hollywood, with the Lakers. He joins a loaded Lakers team which should be a Western Conference favorite, with Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, and Pau Gasol.

Also, in the deal, Andre Iguodala becomes a Denver Nugget, while center Andrew Bynum lands in Philadelphia, along with guard Jason Richardson.

The Magic, whose management turned down a seemingly better deal with the Nets last month, gets Aron Afflalo and Al Harrington from the Nuggets and Nikola Vucevic and Moe Harkless from the 76ers, in addition to three first round picks (one from each team in the deal).

Although they might be celebrating in La-la land (and still, in Miami), this deal signals a continual step toward retraction, in my opinion. There are simply not enough stars in the league, and with a bunch of them teaming up now, markets like Orlando (which got screwed over in this deal), Detroit, and Milwaukee have no chance of competing with these mega-teams, both financially and at the box office. This isn't baseball, where small-market teams can continually replenish through their farm system, or football, where the parity is so great that any team can make a playoff run any given year. Basketball and the NBA is a star-driven league, and without the distribution of these stars equally, the "competitive balance" that David Stern blabbered about on and on during the CBA negotiations might as well be history.