Dwight Howard Has Permission To Speak To Lakers, Nets And Mavericks About Potential Trade

Dwight Howard and his agent can talk to three teams -- the L.A. Lakers, Dallas Mavericks and New Jersey Nets -- about a potential trade with the Orlando Magic, report Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski and SI.com's Sam Amick. There had been massive confusion late Friday as to whether the Magic had indeed allowed Howard to engage other teams in potential deal-making.

Of course, Orlando could elect to reject offers from those teams and either keep Howard for the balance of the 2011-12 season or trade him to a team that the All-Star center is not particularly excited about. The Magic have been said to be cool on the Nets' offer of Brook Lopez and two first-round picks. L.A. is believed to be dangling center Andrew Bynum. A potential Dallas package in a complete mystery on account of the Mavericks having so few high-interest young pieces.