Dwight Howard Plans To Announce Decision on July 10

Los Angeles Lakers free agent center Dwight Howard plans to announce which team he will sign on July 10.

A source close to the All-Star center told ESPN Howard will spend between now and then weighing offers from teams including the Lakers, Dallas, Mavericks Houston Rockets and his hometown Atlanta Hawks.

On the same day word of Howard’s plan leaked, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak told ESPN he was “optimistic” he may return to the L.A. "I think I'm optimistic,” he said. I understand that there's a possibility (Howard) won't, and I probably don't have any more information than anybody in this room does.”

Kupchak also compared the nervousness of not knowing to what the team went through in 2004, the summer when Kobe Bryant was a free agent and entertaining offers from several other teams.

“Very similar. Scary close," Kupchak told ESPN. "Kobe visited with teams -- more than one team, there were several. I remember we were on pins and needles. We'd just gotten beaten and Phil [Jackson] left for the first time and we traded Shaquille [O'Neal] and there was a lot of uncertainty about what Kobe would do; a lot of rumor. Very similar to what's going on right now. When the phone call (with Bryant's decision) came in, we really didn't know which way it was going to go. I would say it's very similar."

This week the Lakers launched their recruitment effort by putting up life-size billboards of Howard outside the Staples Center urging him to return.

Kupchak said the Lakers have had constant contact with Howard since the season ended and that will continue. “My understanding is, there are several other teams that have great interest and he's going to have a process that I understand to be pretty deliberate that he's going to go through, and we'll be involved in that process and we'll see how it plays out."

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