Daryl Morey on Dwight Howard’s upcoming free agency: ‘Uh oh’

Dwight Howard, noted for his unique ability to be swayed by the breaking of a wind, will likely be this summer’s top free agent prize.

The Houston Rockets center will probably be the last star standing once LeBron James and Kevin Durant decide to return to their incumbent teams as free agents in July, and in a league rife with salary cap space, you can bet that one team will attempt to break the bank on the big man.

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Houston general manager Daryl Morey, the king of thinking three transactions ahead of the rest, is more than aware of this. As the only GM that can comment on Howard’s impending Big Move without fear of tampering charges, Morey still gave a circumspect but knowing answer when asked about his team’s plans moving forward with the center.

From the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, as relayed by Sports Illustrated’s Matt Dollinger (via Pro Basketball Talk):

“During the front office panel, ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan, who was moderating, asked Morey about re-signing Dwight Howard. Morey immediately replied: ‘Uh oh.’ MacMullan pressed the Rockets GM on negotiations. He responded that the NBA’s max salary threshold keeps things simple. MacMullan asked, So you’re re-signing him? To which Morey responded: ‘I just said they had the concept.’”

Howard, who turned 30 last December, is due to make over $23 million in the final year of his contract next season. He is expected to decline the player option on that deal, first signed in 2013, to take advantage of a salary cap that is expected to jump over $22 million this summer, as the NBA happily warms to the embrace of its new television deal.

Houston has played well of late, especially on the defensive end, but the team still stands as perhaps the league’s biggest disappointment in 2015-16. Unable to point to the sorts of injuries that outfits in New Orleans and Chicago have dealt with, the 34-33 Rockets have struggled to lob themselves into the sort of Warriors-spoiler status most predicted they’d run with prior to the campaign. The malaise has already cost former coach Kevin McHale his job, along with Howard and teammate James Harden’s league-wide credibility.

The three-time Defensive Player of the Year hasn’t made an All-Star team since his first year with Houston in 2013-14, and he missed half of his team’s games last season due to a combination of back and knee woes. With that in place, he’s still providing nearly 15 points per game on nine shots a night, making over 60 percent of his field goal attempts, pulling in over 12 rebounds a game with a rebound rate right in line with his career averages.

That is to say, in a league starved for tradition big men, a healthy Dwight Howard will be well worth that next deal. For the first couple of years, anyway.

Whether or not that happens in Houston is dependent on a massive confluence of tipping factors. Howard has left money on the table before in order to chase down a happy working situation – witness his move away from Kobe Bryant’s Lakers in 2013 – but that batch of history could either work as a predictive force or a “not this time, I need the cash up front”-situation.

Though Morey is able to speak freely when discussing his starting center’s options (and, jokes aside, none of us should be reading anything into a flippant comment regarding a free agency turn that is three and a half months away), there is considerable reason to believe that the Rox might pass on re-signing the center at what will be the market rate. Even if the Rockets were cruising their way toward home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, this consternation would still be in place.

The team isn’t cruising in that direction, though. Houston is tied with the sinking Mavericks for the seventh seed in the West, working two games up on a snakebitten Utah Jazz squad. As of right now, the team would line up against the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the postseason, a team the Rockets took one game from earlier in the season prior to losing by a combined 59 points over the next three contests.

Also as of right now, with that scary market rate, the Rockets would then be beholden to basically offer Dwight Howard a third of its salary cap to pay him into his mid-30s. No, Dwight may no longer be a star, but would his unique skill set be worth such an investment?

And, again for the guy who said “no” to Kobe and guaranteed millions just three years ago, would Howard even want to hop on back into the same situation? For so many years?

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops