New Orleans Pelicans: Would Stan Van Gundy bring Dwight Howard in?

Would Stan Van Gundy consider burying the hatchet if the New Orleans Pelicans brought in Dwight Howard?

I started thinking late last night about how the New Orleans Pelicans might handle their free agency period. After all, it’s going to be such a whirlwind time for the organization when considering all the factors in play.

Where do we even begin? I guess I’ll start with how the ongoing pandemic has impacted the NBA. Not only will this year’s free agency take place earlier than expected at a time of year that it never has before, but the revenue that the league lost due to the virus is set to lower the salary cap dramatically.

On top of those issues occurring league-wide, there are decisions the New Orleans Pelicans have to make about their own roster. Brandon Ingram is staring down a new max-contract, so with little cap space remaining, what holes will the Pelicans fill?

All that thinking lead me to believe that it might be time to squash some old issues in New Orleans because the Pelicans could potentially get some cheap rim production by signing Stan Van Gundy’s former muse Dwight Howard to the roster in free agency.

Why a Stan Van Gundy-Dwight Howard reunion could work for the New Orleans Pelicans

I’ll admit, I might be taking Stan Van Gundy and Dwight Howard’s past feuds and blowing them out of proportion considering Howard’s comments about his relationship with Van Gundy just a few years ago, but it is fair to start questioning. Could a reunion between the once fearsome duo work for the New Orleans Pelicans?

I think it could if Howard is willing to play ball with Pelicans management on a reasonable contract. Why? Well, I’ll give you two reasons right now.

Let’s start with the obvious one, Dwight Howard is nowhere close to the star he once was in Orlando, in fact, he’s far from it. For the New Orleans Pelicans and Stan Van Gundy, that’s a good thing.

Howard and Van Gundy’s issues in Orlando were rooted in the fact that Howard was the star of the team and he wanted Van Gundy fired because he didn’t think Van Gundy was putting the team in the best place to succeed.

Since then, both sides have learned that they just wanted the best for each other, with the pair even praising one another publically in recent years. As a role player now, I’m sure Howard might be happy to reunite with Van Gundy and put into a system he excels at playing in.

Then there’s the second part to this which is, the Pelicans could really use some discount rim protection since their other roster holes can be filled better in the NBA Draft. We all know that the team also needs depth on the wing along with a stretch shooter and back-up point guard. That means they might turn to Howard for rim-protection since he knows Van Gundy’s system.

As I said before, the only issue is getting Dwight Howard to agree to a reasonable contract, if he does that I wouldn’t mind seeing Howard suit up and give New Orleans a veteran presence, and I’m sure Van Gundy wouldn’t mind either. As always the decision is in management’s hands and I’ll be curious to see how the New Orleans Pelicans handle these upcoming months.